Tas. 6645. 
PAIONIA WI1TTMANNIANA. 
Native of the Caucasus and Armenia. 
Nat. Ord. RanuncuLacEx.—Tribe PHONIEZ. 
Genus Paonia, Linn. ; (Benth. et Hook.f. Gen. Pl. vol. i. p. 10.) 
Pxonta Wittmanniana ; herbacea, foliis biternatis subtus discoloribus pilis elon- 
gatis flexuosis laxe vestitis, foliolis distinctis ovatis oblongis v. obovatis, 
lateralibus basi acutis rotundatis v. dilatatis et cordatis, terminali basi cuneato, 
floribus amplis pallide ochroleucis virescenti-stramineis v. fere albis, ovariis 2-3 
glaberrimis. 
P. Wittmanniana, Stev. in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. 3, vol. xii. p. 374; Boiss. Fl. 
Orient, vol. i. p. 97; Bot. Reg. vol. xxxii. t.9; Annales de Gand, 1846, t. 64. 
The Ponies form a notoriously variable genus of plants, 
and many species have been made on insufficient characters, 
especially out of the forms of the common P. corallina. I 
have given some observations on a few of these under the 
Himalayan P. emodi (Plate 5719), a reference to which 
will show how little there is to separate it and P. albiflora 
(Plate 1756), of Siberia, from this Caucasian plant, which, 
as Boissier remarks, is closely allied to P. corallina, differing 
in the colour of the flower and the glabrous carpels. : 
This, the first and only yellow-flowered (so-called) Pasony, 
was introduced into the Horticultural Society’s Gardens so 
long ago as 1842, from the Imperial Gardens of Nikitz in 
the Crimea, shortly after its discovery by Count Woronzoft 
m Abcharia, who at the same time procured the now well- 
own Abies Nordmanniana and Epimedium pinnatum. 
(Letter from Dr. Fischer, of St. Petersburg, to Sir W. 
Hooker ; see Hooker’s “ London Journal of Botany,” 1842, 
p. 207). It was named after Mr. Wittmann, a traveller in 
the Tauran Caucasus, who was afterwards gardener at 
Odessa. Dr, Lindley, who is my authority for this state- 
Ment, says that twenty-five guineas were demanded for a 
SEPTEMBER Ist, 1882, 
