PAEONIA. 



however, yielded colour-forms of greater richness than any other. 

 And the form called " Sunbeam " has blossoms of a perfectly pure 

 crimson -scarlet which in the sunshine seem positively incandescent, 

 luminous as globular lighted lamps of blood with a golden heart. 

 (This belongs, in reality, to P. peregrina, q.v.) 



P. lutea has but newly come to us out of the East. It has most 

 beautiful glaucous foliage like that of P. Moutan, amid which droop its 

 unduly small flowers of rich golden-yellow (like those of a Nuphar tied 

 on to a frail shoot of tree-Paeony). It is, none the less, a rarity deserving 

 of the highest consideration, no less on account of its beaut}' and the 

 interest of the rank it holds in the race, as on that of the monumental 

 nature of the prices asked for it, which are so big that they would 

 make even Dog's Mercury desirable by all who adopt this convenient 

 standard of value. The superior form of P. lutea was at one time 

 called P. Delavayi, a name belonging by rights to a closely -allied species, 

 with the same beauty of foliage and something approaching to the 

 same excessive modesty of habit, but with flowers of a rich and muffled 

 dark red, verging upon a clarety obscurity. 



P. macrophylla is a very rare Paeony, and has the most magnificent 

 leaves of all, and big blossoms of soft yellow, upstanding, splendid, 

 open, and unashamed. (Levant.) 



P. microcarpa is said to be pink and to come from Spain. 



P. Mlokosievitschii. — This pleasant little assortment of syllables 

 should be practised daily, but only before dinner (unless teetotal prin- 

 ciples of the strictest are adopted), by all who wish to talk familiarly 

 of a sovereign among Paeonies — a rare plant, and rendered almost 

 impregnable by its unpronounceable name. It has an ample habit 

 and lovely dark foliage, amid and above which are borne huge flowers 

 like strayed water-lilies of delicate saffron or citron yellow. It is in 

 the wilds of the Caucasus that this temptation has its lair. 



P. mollis comes from Siberia and has blossoms of a sad crimson, 

 tragic at being unable to rival its predecessor in the alphabet. 



P. Moutan is perhaps the most august of all, for centuries uncounted 

 the centre and heart of far-Eastern Art, and only within the last very 

 few years discovered as a wild plant in the remote mountains appro- 

 priately involved in the vast profound heart of China. It is the 

 rock-plant of rock-plants ; and, on every plate of every great period, 

 shows us reproachfully how much better the East has understood the 

 wedding of flowers and rocks from the first beginning of history, long 

 before we had even ceased to think of blue Woad as the latest thing 

 in the fashions, to say nothing of blue Lobelias. Let then the wild 

 Moutan be tucked into some high corner of the big rock-garden, 



(1,996) 33 II. — c 



