for October, 1922 



285 



The Regal Peony 



FLORUM AMATOR 



THE peon)- by reason of its stately beauty occupies a 

 commanding position in our tiower gardens from 

 early May till mid-June. It is indeed a regal flower 

 today just as it was nearly fifteen hundred years ago in 

 China where it had become the chosen flower of emperors 

 and the admiration of painters and poets, who made it a 

 subject for brush and verse. The peony is an enduring 

 plant : it not only has maintained its place as a favorite 

 through the centuries but also is the hardiest of all our 

 herbaceous perennial flowering plants. 



In general cultivation we find only three species of the 

 peony. These are Pcronia officinalis, which grows wild in 

 southern Europe and which received its name, Pcconia, 

 now given to the entire genus, from one PseoH, a phys- 

 ician who according to myth or tradition, healed the 

 wounds of the war god, Alars, with the roots of this plant ; 

 Pcconia moutan. the tree peony; Pcronia albiffora, or as it 

 is more generally called, the Chinese peony. Both the 

 Chinese and the tree peony are indigenous through north- 

 ern Siberia to the borderland of China, 



There are comparatively few varieties of Pcronia offici- 

 nalis although in mythical history it antedates both P. 

 moutan and P. albiflora. The most cultivated of the P. 

 ofUcinalis varieties is rubruni, the well-known red peony 

 of the old time flower gardens, grown chiefly today be- 

 cause it flowers from two to three weeks earlier than any 

 of the P. albiffora varieties to which it is much inferior, 

 but, nevertheless from its earlv blooming habit, worthy of 

 cultivation. 



P. moutan, the tree peony, receives its common name, 

 tree, because it grows in a shrub-like form and attains a 

 height sometimes of three to four feet. Its large blooms 

 are in extremely delicate shades of color and also appear 

 three to four weeks earlier than those of P. albiffora. The 

 plant of P. moutan is entirely hardy, but the buds, on ac- 

 count of appearing very early in Spring, unless protected, 

 are often injured by late frots. The tree peony though 

 it has not gained in America or Europe the popularity of 

 P. albiffora (the Chinese) varieties are fully worthy of 

 cultivation. This peony was brought through the efforts 

 of Sir Joseph Banks into England in 1794. An envoy of 

 the Dutch East India Company after his travels through 

 China in 1656 had enthusiastically described this peony in 

 a report to his companv, which report Sir Joseph Banks 

 had read. 



P. albiflora, which in its extremely large and constantly 

 increasing number of varieties, is the most widely culti- 

 ^•ated and most popular of all the species, was brought 

 into England not long after the tree peony. The precise 

 date is not fixed but Sir Joseph brought into England P. 

 albiflora, variety fra^rans in 1905, and P. albiflora JVIiitt- 

 Icyi was brought in by Mr. Whittley in 1808. 



Thus the peonv, the favorite flower of the Chinese em- 

 perors as early as the fifteenth century, and received with 

 great favor in Japan in the seventeenth, was not brought 

 into England till about the eighteenth century. Erom 

 England the peonv was soon introduced into France and 

 about the same time into America. 



In France, however, in the gardens of the nobility under 

 the skillful cultivation of the French gardeners, the mod- 

 ern historv of the peonv began, and many sports appeared 

 and hvbrids were produced. The French especially, and 

 also the Dutch and Belgian jieonv specialists, have given 

 to the world manv new and beautiful varieties of the al- 



biflora species. M. Dessert and M Lemoine of France 

 during the last two decades have disseminated many of 

 the finest varieties and in England the Kelways have 

 added desirable varieties to the list. It was not till about 

 1850 that peonies began to be popular in America, though 

 Mr. McMahon in 1806 speaks of five kinds, and William 

 R. Prince mentions a collection of forty varieties in 1828, 

 and again in 1862 speaks of having twenty varieties of tree 

 peonies in his garden at Flushing, Long Island. In the 

 West, H. A. Terry and Mrs. Sarah A. Pleas of Iowa, and 

 in the East, John Richardson and George Hollis have sent 

 out not a few varieties of merit. 



The claims of the peony for a large place in our gardens 

 are the glorious beauty of its large flowers in many colors 

 and forms ; hardiness even where the Winters are severe, 

 and hence permanency ; easy culture ; ready adaptability to 

 different soils and situations : freedom from disease and 

 insects ; utility as cut flower and as a plant in artistic 

 landscape effects. 



The species of Pcconia known as albiffora, or Chinese 

 peony, has been divided into eight types, based on the 

 forms of the flowers, by the American Peony Society : 

 single, having a single row of white guards and yellow 

 pollen bearing stamens ; semi-double, having several rows 

 of wide petals, a center of stems and partially transformed 

 petaloids ; Japanese, with wide guards the same as single, 

 but with stamens and anthers greatly enlarged into nar- 

 row, thick petaloids of various colors, tipped with vestiges 

 of the yellow anthers devoid of pollen ; anemone, going 

 a step further in the ])rocess of doubling, and having the 

 stamens all transformed into short, narrow petals form- 

 ing a round cushion in the center of the flower; crown, 

 having wide petals developed in the center of the flower, 

 forming a high crown with narrow, short petals in a ring 

 or collar around it, the crown and guards often being of 

 one color, and the collar another or lighter shade; bomb, 

 in which all the center petals are uniformly wide, ap- 

 proaching the guards but distinctly dift'erentiated from 

 them, and forming a globe-shaped center without collar 

 or crown ; semi-rose with petals all uniformly wide but 

 loosely built and with a few pollen bearing stamens vis- 

 ible or nearly concealed ; rose in which the process of 

 doubling is completed, all the stamens being transformed 

 fully into wide evenly arranged petaloids, smiilar to 

 guards, forming a perfect rose-shaped bloom. 



As J. L. Coit of Cornell University has said in his ex- 

 cellent monograph on the peony: "The peony will grow 

 almost anywhere in the I'nited States where apples will 

 grow." Peonies will thrive to some measure in almost 

 every location, where the drainage is good, but will not 

 endure wet feet. They prefer a moderately moist, deep, 

 rich sandy loam. In such location and soil we may plant 

 peonies without further preparations. 



Though the location and soil are both favorable, better 

 results may be obtained, if several months or weeks before 

 planting we incorporate in the soil to the depth of two 

 feet a layer, of six inches or more deep, of thoroughlv 

 decayed manure. If where the peonies must be set out, 

 the soil is naturally very poor, it should be removed to 

 the depth of two feet and after a layer of manure is dug 

 mto the bottom of the excavation, it should be filled up 

 with a compost of about three parts of rotted sod or rich 

 field sod, one part rotted manure and one of leaf mold. 

 If the field soil or sod is heavv clay, incorporate about one 

 sixth part sand. When finished, the surface of the bed 



