PAEONIA. 



it must be remembered that in many cases the name alone will be the 

 enthusiast's reward, for a vast number of "species" resolve them- 

 selves into P. officinalis, P. peregrina, or other sorts, and are not 

 clearly distinct in the garden except to the eye of minute love. 



P. Beresowskyi is about 2 feet high — a rose-pink Chinaman. 



P. Broteri is a crimson Spaniard, bending and smooth, with leaves 

 brilliantly glittering green, and glaucous underneath. It has a variety 

 P. obovatifolia which is P. lobata (Boiss., not Desf.). 



P. Brown i delights California with the fragrance of its red blossoms, 

 and the leaves also are tipped with the same rich tone of scarlet. 



P. Cambessedesii is a rare species, endemic, like so many startling 

 plants, to Corsica and the Balearic Islands. It stands about 15 inches 

 high, and has pink flowers and erect shining purplish leaves with thin 

 leaflets. I have sometimes found its seedlings tender. 



P. corallina is our own Pacony of the Steep Holmes, but probably 

 a member of a vast aggregate, only to be hair-splittingly differentiated 

 from P. officinalis. 



P. coriacea approaches P. Cambessedesii, but has much thicker, 

 more leathery foliage, glaucous-grey below, much resembling in 

 general effect a downless P. corallina. This is P. Russii of Arno 

 (not of Bivona). From beside the high snows in fat muddy open places 

 in Granada, on the Sierra de Tejeda, &c. 



P. Corsica, whatever it may be, should stand 2 feet high, and have 

 blossoms of vivid rose-crimson. 



P. dahurica, from Siberia, is pink. 



P. decora has smaller segments than P. peregrina, and blossoms 

 inclining to more of a magenta tint. (Eastern Europe and Levant.) 



P. Emodi is a very rare and most beautiful tall wild Paeony from 

 Kumaon and Hazara, with magnificent great white flowers. The 

 leaves are glaucous-grey beneath, and blooms are borne on long 

 pedicels from the upper axils. There is a variety P. E. glabra which 

 is quite near to P. albijlora, but differs in having but one carpel, and 

 thai smooth. 



P. humilis is less in stature, only about 18 inches high, with flowers 

 of vivid magenta-red. (South Europe.) 



P. japonica, a gracious Paeony with small cups of pearly-white 

 or pink, followed in autumn by gaping tricorned seed-vessels revealing 

 glossy rows of jewels in scarlet and ebony above the splayed ample 

 leafage of pale-green. It used to be called P. obovata, and is lovely in 

 the mountain-copses of Japan, among the Cypripediums. 



P. lobata is a handsome species, of 2 feet high and more, from South 

 Europe and Asia, with solid goblets of rose. In cultivation it has, 



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