78 FLORA HISTORICA, 



about the year 1789, but most of these plants pe- 

 rished in the voyage. About the year 179-^, other 

 plants were imported, and since that time the Tree 

 Peony has frequently been brought from China in 

 a growing state. 



This favourite flower of the jMandarins is said to 

 have been cultivated in China upwards of fourteen 

 hundred years, yet the singular inhabitants of that 

 ancient empire think so little of that period, as to 

 consider it rather a plant of modern than of ancient 

 introduction. The Chinese writers differ in their 

 accounts with regard to the origin of this shrub, 

 some attributing it to a particular process of culture, 

 by which the common herbaceous Peony has been 

 converted into this magnificent shrub, which is said 

 to reach the height of eight or ten feet in the pro- 

 vince of Loyang, where the soil and climate seem 

 particularly favourable to the growth of this plant. 



Some of the Chinese authors tell us, and perhaps 

 with more correctness, that the Moutan was first 

 discovered m-owino: amonc: the mountains in North- 

 ern China, whence it was brought into the southern 

 provinces, and there cultivated with the same mania 

 as Tulips have been in Europe, since we are told 

 that some choice varieties of the Moutan have been 

 sold in China for a hundred ounces of gold. It is 

 propagated in China principally by seed, by which 

 process such numerous kinds have been raised, that 



