THE 



Canadian Horticulturist. 



Vol. XXI. 



Toronto 



1898 



April. 



THE PEONY. 



INCE we are send- 

 ing out roots of her- 

 baceous peonies as 

 a part of our plant 

 distribution for '98, 

 we thought it would 

 be interesting to use 

 as a frontispiece a 

 photograph of a fine 

 clump of these plants 

 in full bloom at the 

 Central Experimen- 

 tal Farm, Ottawa. 

 f The cut is kindly 



furnished us by Dr. Saunders, from his 

 report for 1896, in which he writes as 

 follows : — The peony is an old garden 

 favorite which has of late years grown 

 very much in public esteem on account 

 of the large number of beautiful new 

 varieties which have been produced. 

 The herbaceous sorts are best known 

 and have a first claim on our attention. 

 These consist of several distinct species, 

 the flowers of which when unimproved, 

 are single or semi double, but by cultiva- 



13 



lion, selection and cross-fertilizing, a 

 large number of very fine double forms 

 have been obtained. The Chinese 

 peony P. albiflora, a native of China 

 and Siberia has been very much used by 

 those who have worked on the improve- 

 ment of the peony. This flower was 

 first introduced to cultivation about 

 1780, and was brought prominently into 

 notice nearly a century ago ; a number 

 of the first new forms having been des- 

 cribed in the Transactions of the Lin- 

 ntean Society in 1817. After this peonies 

 grew rapidly in favor, and from 1835 to 

 1842 choice examples of the newly intro- 

 duced sorts of that period were sold at 

 very high figures ranging from ^2 to 

 ^10 sterling each. In subsequent years, 

 they were favored with less public atten- 

 tion, but the interest has revived in them 

 very much during the past ten years, and 

 in the catalogues of some of the larger 

 growers of these plants, there are now 

 offered as many as 500 named sorts all 

 said to be distinct varieties, varying in 

 color from pure white through diff"erent 



