collected on the Keshish Dagh near Broussa, and quite 
recently plants raised from seed secured in the neigh- 
bourhood of Smyrna have been grownin English garJens 
as “Sunbeam.” So far, however, from being, as this 
name would suggest, a plant of garden origin recently 
raised, this Paeony is a very distinct and natural species 
with a long and interesting cultural history. It was 
known in the XVI Century to Clusius, who, in an account 
of the vegetation of Pannonia, published in 1583, says 
that it was then grown in the gardens of certain noble 
dames from seeds received from Constantinople. Com- 
paring it with our P. officinalis, Linn., the Paeony then 
familiar in gardens further west, Clusius pointed out the 
thicker leaves and the richer red, not purple, flowers of 
this Balkan plant which he aptly termed ‘ Paeonia 
byzantina.” 1n 1601 Clusius included the species in his 
renowned Historia and supplied an excellent figure. It 
was still rare in Europe, though we learn from Bessler 
that quite early in the XVII Century it has got as far 
west as the famous garden of the Bishops of Eystedt in 
Bavaria. The elder Bauhin mentioned the plant in his 
Pinax in 1623, but altered its name to ‘“ Paeonia 
peregrina flore dilute et sature rubenti.”? Parkinson in 
his Paradisus in 1629 called it the “red peony of 
Constantinople,” and supplied a figure which, though 
clumsy, is unmistakable. It was again mentioned by 
Johnson, who gave a copy of the figure by Clusius in 
the 1636 edition of Gerard’s Herbal. This figure 
Morison reproduced in his Historia in 1699. Miller did 
not mention this Paeony until 1759 when, in the seventh 
edition of his Gardener’s Dictionary, he included it as 
** Paeonia peregrina flore sature rubente,” and gave the 
Levant as its home. In 1768, in the eighth edition of 
his work, Miller, introducing the Linnean method of 
naming his plants, termed this one P. peregrina, a name 
which still remains valid. But Miller appears to have 
known the plant thus designated by him only from the 
figures given by earlier writers. There is no example of 
the species among his specimens in the Banksian 
herbarium; the only sheet there on which Miller has 
written the name P. peregrina bears two small specimens, 
both received by him from the Paris garden; these two 
