Common Name: HYDRANGEA FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb to small tree or vine. Stem: < 3 m, generally erect; bark generally peeling as thin sheets or narrow strips. Leaf: generally simple, opposite, deciduous or not, +- hairy; stipules 0; blade +- round to narrowly elliptic, entire or toothed. Inflorescence: cyme, raceme, panicle, or flower 1, terminal or axillary, generally bracted. Flower: bisexual, radial, flowers on inflorescence margins occasionally sterile and enlarged; sepals 4--10, free or fused at base, spreading or erect; petals 4--7, free, +- round to narrowly elliptic; stamens 8--12 in 2 whorls or many and clustered, filament base linear or wide and flat; pistil 1, ovary superior to inferior, chambers 2--8, ovules 1--2 or many per chamber, placentas axile or parietal, styles 1--8, free or fused at base. Fruit: capsule, loculicidal or septicidal; styles persistent or not. Seed: generally many, small to minute, oblong to fusiform, winged or not.
Genera In Family: 18 genera, +- 250 species: generally temperate, subtropical northern hemisphere; some cultivated for ornament (Carpenteria, Hydrangea, Philadelphus). Note: Philadelphaceae in TJM (1993).
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston & Charles F. Quibell
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Habit: Shrub < 8 dm. Stem: bark +- white, peeling as thin sheets or strips; twigs strigose. Leaf: deciduous, leathery, +- sessile. Inflorescence: cymes clustered, terminal, dense to open; flowers (1)3--11. Flower: odorless; sepals 5; petals 5, white; stamens 10, alternating long and short, filament base wide, flat; ovary 1/2 inferior, chambers 3, placentas axile, ovule 1 per chamber, styles 3, persistent, spreading in fruit, stigma terminal. Fruit: +- cylindric, septicidal. Seed: fusiform, red-brown.
Etymology: (Latin: small Fendlera)