Description
Hydrangea macrophylla was cultivated and selected for a long time in Japan and China. It was introduced in Europe in 1789-90.
It is a deciduous shrub, with a dense foliage forming a large ball reaching a height of about 1 to 2 m. The opposite leaves can grow to fifteen centimeters in length. They are simple, membranous, orbicular to elliptic and acuminate. They are generally serrate.
The inflorescence of Hydrangea macrophylla is a corymb, with all flowers places in a plane or a hemisphere or even a whole sphere in cultivated forms.
Two distinct types of flowers can be identified: central non-ornamental fertile flowers and peripheral ornamental flowers, usually described as "sterile".
A study of several cultivars showed that all the flowers were fertile but the non-ornamental flowers were pentamers while the decorative flowers were tetramers.
The four sepals of decorative flowers have colors ranging from pale pink, red fuchsia purple to blue. The non-decorative flowers have five small greenish sepals and five small petals. Flowering lasts from early summer to early winter. The fruit is a subglobose capsule.
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“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)