PiEONY. S7 



Grandees, for one of the most choice flowers." 

 (page 250.) 



Even after this description of the plant it re- 

 mained unknown to Europe, until the late Sir 

 Joseph Banks, whose mind had expanded itself 

 beyond that of his fellows in general by travel 

 and the study of nature, and who ever alive to 

 benefitting the world by scattering its blessings 

 and its beauties over the remotest quarters of the 

 globe, gave instructions to several merchants 

 trading to Canton, to inquire for the Moutan, the 

 name by which the Pseony is known in China ; 

 in consequence of these applications, numerous 

 specimens were sent to this country about the 

 year 1789, but most of these plants perished in 

 the voyage. About the year 1794 other plants 

 were imported, and since that time the Tree 

 Pseony has frequently been brought from China 

 in a growing state. 



This favourite flower of the Mandarins is said 

 to have been cultivated in China upwards of four- 

 teen hundred years, yet the singular inhabitants 

 of that ancient empire think so little of that pe- 

 riod as to consider it rather a plant of modern 

 than of ancient introduction. The Chinese v^i- 

 ters differ in their accounts with regard to the 

 origin of this shrub, some attributing it to a par- 



