specimens belong to two distinct species ; neither of the 
two is the ‘“‘red peony of Constantinople.” One, the 
more meagre of the two, appears to be but a form of our 
common garden Paeony with quite glabrous leaves; the 
other represents a type which occurs in the mountains of 
southern France and corresponds most closely with 
P. monticola, Jordan. Into the pitfall thus prepared the 
first to stumble was the editor of this work, at t. 1050 of 
which Sims in 1807 published as P. peregrina, “ upon the 
authority of the Banksian herbarium,” not the Byzantine 
plant to which the name belongs, but the plant of 
Provence and Languedoe which Miller had mistaken for 
it. The elder Decandolle followed Sims in the third 
edition of the Flore Frangaise in 1815 and maintained 
the same attitude in his Systema in 1818. The error, as 
errors will, has survived in many subsequent publications, 
and although the conception of the species to which the 
name P. pereyrina has, since 1807, been misapplied may 
at times have varied, the Balkan plant which Miller so 
designated has always been excluded from it, This is 
doubtless partly due to the fact that, as early as 1818, 
the right of that plant to rank as a species had been 
revindicated by Anderson who, overlooking the confusion 
created in this Magazine, renamed it P. decora; partly 
to the circumstance that in the same year Decandolle, » 
in his Systema, confused the Byzantine plant with 
P. lobata, Desf., a name under which, nowithstanding the 
trouble Decandolle took to rectify his error in the Pro- 
dromus in 1824, our species is still often grown in 
gardens. Handsome asa denizen in a herbaceous border, 
P. peregrina possesses the further recommendation of 
being easily cultivated. It flowers profusely and ripens 
seeds freely. 
Description.—- Herb, perennial; stem glabrous. Leaves: lower twice 
ternate, their divisions distinctly stalked, lateral segments sessile or nearly so, 
intermediate ones rather long stalked, the lobes more or less oblanceolate or 
oblong, or the intermediate ones cuneate-obovate and lobulate, the lobules 
coarsely or incised toothed, the teeth acute or almost acuminate; upper cauline 
leaves with their divisions more or less reduced, the highest appressed to the 
calyx ;. all glabrous, rather polished, pale beneath, occasionally with a few 
rather stiff hairs on the lower surface ; intermediate segments, excluding the 
stalk, 24-42 in. long; lateral lobes }-1} in. wide. Flowers with the very 
concave petals aggregated in an open cup, 2}-4 in. across, brilliant deep red. 
Sepals 4, very coneaye, oblong or wide elliptic, glabrous, 1-1} in. long, Petals 
