Hydrangea

“ The Japanese species of hydrangea are sufficiently hardy to grow in any tolerably favourable situation, but except in the most sheltered localities they seldom blossom to any degree of perfection in the open air, the head of blossom depending on the uninjured development of a well-ripened terminal bud, and this growth being frequently affected by late spring frosts. ”

“ Hydracrylic aldehyde, CH2OH·CH2·CHO, was obtained in 1904 by J. U. Nef (Ann. 335, p. 219) as a colourless oil by heating acrolein with water. Dilute alkalis convert it into crotonaldehyde, CH3·CH:CH·CHO.
HYDRANGEA, a popular flower, the plant to which the name is most commonly applied being Hydrangea Hortensia, a low deciduous shrub, producing rather large oval strongly-veined leaves in opposite pairs along the stem. ”

“ All the beauties of the flower garden are so familiar to us that it is not expected that they will be considered unnatural. If the hydrangea makes a panicle larger than it can bear, man helps it out with a string or stake, for by overdoing it is not undone any more than is the coddled peach tree held up at fruiting time by a dozen poles, or the forced lily with a weak back supported upright by an artificial green stem at church on Easter morning. ”

“ Hydrangea—This is another popular flowering shrub, often had in bloom inside in the spring, but personally I do not consider it suited for such use. The flowers are rather coarse to bear close inspection, such as a house plant must be subject to: they are far more effective in masses out-of-doors or used as semi-formal decorations about paths or stoops, for which purpose they are unsurpassed.
If you care to have them bloom indoors, get small plants from the florist, or start cuttings of new growth in spring, taking shoots which do not have buds. ”

“ As yet this is an uncommon shrub, and allied to the Hydrangea. It is of slender growth, the stems rooting into the support, and with pinky-white flowers. As an ornamental climber it is of no great value, and requires a favoured spot to grow it at all satisfactorily. ”

“ They are distributed wherever a tub will improve the shelf-scape; like Diogenes the hydrangea must have its tub. Put him in the ground and at once he grows woody and branchy [184] and leafy, imagining perhaps that he is intended to become a shrub. Thus he can be seen to profit by his limitations—of how many more of us may this be said! The lobelia—a garden should always be provided with plenty of lobelia, to give it hope—is flushing into the thick young leaf with a twinkle here and there to show what it could do if the rain would stop for just ten minutes ”

“ Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora is a very general favorite because of its great hardiness, profusion of flowers, ease of cultivation, and habit of late blooming. It is too well known to need description.
Robinia hispida, sometimes called Rose Acacia, is a native species of the Locust. It has long, drooping, very lovely clusters of pea-shaped flowers of a soft pink color. It will grow in the poorest soil and stand more neglect than any other shrub I have knowledge of. ”

“ In new potting some large hydrangeas, we were seized with a desire to give the blue tinge to the petals, which so greatly improves the beauty of that fine bold flower, and which is so desirable when they are placed, as these were destined to be, in the midst of red and pink blossoms, fuchsias, salvias, and geraniums. ”

“ In the gloom of the evening it is not difficult for a fertile imagination to fancy castles and cities cresting the heights above.* [Hydrangea grows here, with ivy, Mussoenda, Pyrua, willow, Viburnum, Parnassia, Anemone, Leycesteria formosa, Neillia, Rubus, Astilbe, rose, Panax, apple, Bucklandia, Daphne, pepper, Scindapsus, Pierix, holly, Lilium giganteum ("Kalang tatti," Khas.) , Camellia, Elaeocarpus, Buddleia, etc. Large bees' nests hang from the rocks.] ”

“ I suppose that is what has produced, has at least aggravated, cases like Tryphena’s. It is a thing to be on one’s guard against. I quite see that if my own symptoms increase I shall shortly arrive at the point of being unable to endure the sight of many persons superior to myself; which is illogical and ridiculous.
[228] Chapter XIX I WAS congratulating the hydrangea this morning on its delightful attitude toward life. This is no virtue of the hydrangea’s ”

“ Hibiscus syriacus, 6 to 7 feet.
Hydrangea Hortensia (Common Hydrangea) , 4 to 8 feet; H. paniculata grandiflora, 4 to 8 feet. Pruned back hard before starting into growth in spring, this can be kept dwarf, and if liquid manure is given the heads of creamy-white flowers in early autumn are very fine.
Hypericum calycinum (Rose of Sharon) , 1 foot. Grows well under trees. H. moserianum, 2 feet.
Ilex Aquifolium (Common Holly) . A familiar and handsome evergreen tree. The best variegated varieties are Golden Queen, Handsworth Silver, and Silver Queen. I. crenata (Japanese Holly) . ”

“ For instance, a rich orange-coloured liquid, produced from the rust of iron, will change the colour of the flowers of the Hydrangea hortensis from a pale light pink or lilac to a beautiful azure, but not to a fulvous orange, which the gentleman practising in ultramarine would naturally have expected. ”

“ But his picture was painted at the end of June in Kyoto, as the season there is three weeks earlier than in the part I know best near Yokohama.
In June, and until late in the autumn, the wild Hydrangeas bloom in every hedgerow. Besides the bright blue which every one knows, and which is so much grown in pots with us, there is another (H. hortensia, va japonica) , which is greenish-white in the centre, with purple flowers like a halo around the edge. ”

“ Hypericum, Berberry, Hydrangea, Wormwood, Adamia cyanea, Viburnum, Elder, dwarf bamboo, etc.
The climbing plants were still Panax or Aralia, Kadsura, Saurauja, Hydrangea, Vines, Smilax, Ampelopsis, Polygona, and, most beautiful of all, Stauntonia, with pendulous racemes of lilac blossoms. Epiphytes were rarer, still I found white and purple Cæloynes, and other Orchids, and a most noble white Rhododendron, whose truly enormous and delicious lemon-scented blossoms strewed the ground. ”

“ One of the commonest lawn shrubs is Hydrangea paniculata. The commonest fault in growing it is scattering the plants over the lawn, where they suffer in the competition with grass roots, and do not show off to advantage. It is far better to mass them in front of taller things. ”

“ Some large Hydrangeas in tubs are moved to a sheltered place and put close together, a mound of sand being shovelled up all round to nearly the depth of the tubs; then a wall is made of thatched hurdles, and dry fern is packed well in among the heads of the plants. They would be better in a frost-proof shed, but we have no such place to spare.
The making of a lawn is a difficulty in our very poor sandy soil. ”

“ Keep them from frost. Thus treated, they are very desirable bulbs.
Hòveas, about eight species, pretty plants of New South Wales, blue pea-flowering evergreen shrubs; the finest are H. lineàris, H. rosmarinifòlia, H. longifòlia, and H. Célsii, which is the most superb, and flowers in abundance. They grow and flower freely; the pots should be drained.
Hydrángea horténsis is a well known plant, and much esteemed for its great profusion of very elegant, though monstrous, flowers. They are naturally of a rose colour, but under certain circumstances of culture they become blue. ”

“ There is no end to the uses of Hydrangeas in pots; a well-bloomed plant will give life and interest to many an uninteresting corner; the bloom is long-enduring and stands equally well in sun and shade. If the blue colour, which comes naturally in some soils is desired, it can be had by mixing pounded slate and iron filings with the compost—alum is another well-known agent for inducing the blue colour. But I have much faith in slate, for the bluest I have ever seen came from a garden on a slaty soil.
GERANIUMS AND CANNAS IN A STONE-EDGED BED. ”

“ It is hardy and of rapid growth. Good plants are six dollars a hundred, and should be planted a foot apart. Catalogues say that if planted in rich soil one foot apart, a hedge five feet high can be grown in three seasons. Common Privet is more hardy than California Privet. Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora makes a beautiful low-growing hedge; good plants can be bought for six dollars a hundred. Berberis Thunbergii, or Barberry, makes a fine hedge, on account of its beautiful foliage and scarlet fruit. ”

“ Before us is a quantity of Chinese hydrangeas, remarkable in this case for the small size of the plants, and disproportionately large heads of pink blossoms. Cape pelargoniums, too, are well represented: they are curious plants, indigenous to the Cape of Good Hope; specimens of them are very often sent to this country, with boxes of bulbs, for which the Cape is famous. When they arrive, they look like pieces of deadwood; but when properly cared for, they rapidly make roots and branches, and produce their interesting flowers in abundance. ”

“ This discovery was soon followed by that of the hydra fusca, Fig. 7.
The most general attitudes of these hydræ are those which are represented in Fig. 5 and 6 of the same plate. They fix the posterior [367] extremity b against a plant or other substance, as e f; the body a b; and the arms a c, being extended in the water. There is a small difference in the attitudes of the three kinds which we are now describing.
The bodies of the hydra viridis, Fig. 5, and of the hydra grisea, Fig. 6, diminish from the anterior to the posterior extremity by an almost insensible gradation. ”

“ It is attached at one end to a submerged aquatic plant, while the mouth at the free end is provided with tentacles, [2] by which it feeds and moves. It buds, and also produces eggs. The young hydra, when hatched or thrown off, attaches itself to plants, as did its parents. Some hydroids attach themselves to shells, and are supported by horny, branching skeletons, specimens of which are numerous, and may be seen in almost any museum.
HYDRA, SHOWING BUDS.
A second representative of this class is the jelly fish. ”

“ Plucked and put into water, they quickly decay, and doubtless, give out a putrescent air; when alive and growing, there need not be any danger apprehended from them, provided fresh air is frequently introduced. For [pg 269] spacious rooms, the better kinds, during warm weather, are those which have a large leaf and bossy flower. Large leaves have a very agreeable effect on the senses; their rich green is grateful to the sight; of this kind, the Hydrangaea is remarkably well adapted for apartments, but it requires plenty of water. ”

“ Now, the fresh-water hydra has some very near relatives which live in the sea, and these fashion their lives on very different lines. In the first place, they, like the hydra, start as single individuals, but sooner or later develop little buds which grow out into arm-bearing creatures exactly like themselves ”

“ In the same zoological group of neighboring species, we find some individuals that always live solitary and others always associated, as for example the specially remarkable group of Polyps or Acalepha.
One species of this group, the brown Hydra (Hydra fusca) , is common in stagnant waters and even in small garden basins. It has always excited the interest of naturalists and philosophers since Trembly made known its marvelous faculties. These Hydras ordinarily live solitary; but frequently the larger individuals are seen carrying smaller ones on the walls of their bodies. ”

“ These three species of the hydra having been those on which the greatest number of experiments have been made, and of which we have the best information, it is of these only I shall speak in the following account, unless it is particularly mentioned otherwise.
There are few animals more difficult to describe than the hydra, as it has scarce any thing constant in its form, varying continually in its figure: they are often so beset with young, as to appear ramose and divaricated, the young ones constituting as it were a part of the parent’s body. ”

“ Its powers of increase are prodigious, as every fragment is capable of becoming an independent plant, producing roots and stems, and extending itself indefinitely in every direction. The specific gravity of it is so nearly that of water, that it is more disposed to sink than float. A small branch of the plant is represented, with a hydra attached to it, in a subsequent chapter.
The special cells in which the circulation is most readily seen are the elongated cells around the margin of the leaf and those of the midrib. ”

“ In the sandy tracts of the south, the roots of the euphor- bias afford nutriment to a remarkable parasitic plant of the genus hydnom, which dwells underground for the greater part of its existence, and then suddenly projects above the surface a solitary stalk, whose extremity expands into a large red flower, with a smell like that of putrid meat. This plant is endowed with many virtues in the eyes of the natives, who employ its sap to give greater strength to their fishing-lines and fiets, and also utilise it especially as a specific against several maladies. ”

“ The polyps also include the salt water animals called hydroids, jellyfishes, and coral polyps.
Hydroids.—Figure 40 shows a hydroid, or group of hydra-like growths, one of which 29eats and digests for the group, another defends by nettling cells, another produces eggs. Each hydra-like part of a hydroid is called a hydranth. Sometimes the buds on the hydra remain attached so long that a bud forms upon the first bud. Thus three generations are represented in one organism. Such growths show us that it is not always easy to tell what constitutes an individual animal. ”