ON HYDRANGEA ARBORESCENS. 
15 
while it is fresh, which treatment also facilitates its drying. The 
bark of the dried root has a rather sharp, aromatic, not unpleasant 
taste, somewhat resembling cascarilla bark. 
The following botanical description of the plant is from Gray's 
Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States. 
Natural order.— Saxifrages. Suborder Hydrangese. Sexual 
System. Decandria Digynia. 
Creneric characters. — Shrubs : leaves opposite, petals valvate 
in the bud, pistils fewer than the petals, a division of the calyx 
(usually two, united below, and separating at the top ;) and the 
petals with the stamens (mostly 5 — 10) inserted on the calyx, 
which is free or more or less adherent to the ovary. Calyx 
withering, persistent. Petals rarely none. Pods several, many 
seeded. Seeds small anatropous, with a slender embryo in the 
albumen. 
The essential characters are calyx-tube hemispherical, 8 — 10 
ribbed, coherent with the ovary ; the limb 4 — 5 toothed, ovate. 
Stamens 8 — 10 slender. Pod crowned with the two divergent 
styles, 2-celled below, many seeded, opening by a hole between 
the styles. Shrubs with opposite petioled leaves, and numerous 
flowers in compound cymes. The marginal flowers are usually 
sterile and radient, consisting merely of a membraneous coloured, 
flat, dilated and showy calyx. (The name is from Greek words 
signifying water and vase, probably in allusion to the vase-like 
shape of the pods.) 
Specific characters. — Smooth, or nearly so ; leaves ovate, rarely 
heart-shaped, pointed, serrate, green both sides ; cymes flat. 
Rocky banks of northern Pennsylvania (on the Susquehanna, 
Carey,) and southward. Flowers, which appear in July, often 
all fertile, rarely all radient like the garden hydrangea. 
CHEMICAL EXAMINATION. 
1. A portion of the root was allowed to macerate in cold 
water for twenty-four hours, and transferred to a flask, which 
was then connected with a Liebig's condenser ; heat cautiously 
applied by means of a sand bath. The distilled water was seve- 
ral times returned and redistilled, but the product, although 
highly charged with the odour of the plant, was tasteless and 
offered no indication of oil. 
