85 



in Parkinson's Paradisus in 1656. Camerarius, who published his 

 " Hortus Medicus et Philosophicus " at Frankfort in 1588, stated 

 that a double red peony which he called P. foemina polyanthos had 

 recently been introduced at Antwerp, and that the first plant sold 

 for twelve crowns. Lobel, in his " Icones," dated Antwerp 1581, 

 and Tabernaemontanus in his " Eicones," dated Frankfort 1590, 

 figure this old double peony; and a later author also figures a 

 double white of the same species (Sabine, 1818). It is probable 

 that the double white was an offshoot or sport from the double 

 red. It is also probable that these two by crossing gave rise to 

 intermediates, for during the next century we find in the third 

 part of the " History of Plants," by Morrison (Professor of 

 Botany at Oxford, who died in 1683), a description of a flesh 

 colored variety which is intermediate between the two old kinds. 



Some of the earliest cultivated varieties of this species are 

 " Rubra," the common old double red peony so often seen to-day 

 throughout Europe and America in the borders about laborers' 

 cottages; " Carnescens," a deep rose color, sometimes called varie- 

 gated peony; "Albicans," a double white which opens a pale flesh 

 color, but gradually changes to a pure white. This beautiful and 

 valuable plant being so hardy and immune to ordinary neglect, soon 

 came to be known as the poor man's flower. The fact that it was 

 to be found in every laboring man's yard, soon caused it to be 

 termed " vulgar " by the rich, and a determined effort was made 

 by the wealthy classes of the seventeenth century to ostracize this 

 flower. Even to the present day the remnants of this old feeling 

 of hostility may be met with in the tendency of certain persons 

 to class this flower as " vulgar." Bester in the sixteenth century 

 said " Vulgatissima est omnium Paeoniarum," and Anderson in 

 1817, while admitting that this plant is " without exaggeration the 

 most splendid of all flowers," at the same time says, " Nothing 

 but its extreme vulgarity and the extraordinary fecundity of its 

 roots could have brought this beautiful plant into the neglect it 

 has suffered for a century past." This whole movement against 

 the double red peony simply illustrates that old principle in human 

 nature, that what is sought after and praised the most is some- 

 thing which is rare, costly and artificial, and not something which 

 is easily obtained, beautiful, and naturally satisfactory. In other 

 words, the wealthy classes did not love the peony for its own sake, 

 but for the wealth which it could be made to indicate; and as 

 soon as the double-red multiplied and increased in the land, it 



