344 



six, others eight or ten spear-shaped lobes, some cut into two or three 

 segments, and others entire; of a pale green, and downy on their 

 under side: the stalks are terminated by one flower of a bright-red 

 colour, a little less than that of the common Female Peony, having 

 fewer petals. 



The Portugal Peony, with a single sweet flower, has not roots 

 composed of roundish tubers, but has two or three long taper forked 

 fangs like fingers: the stalk rises little more than a foot high: the 

 leaves are composed of three or four oval lobes, of a pale colour on 

 their upper side, and hoary underneath: the stalk is terminated by a 

 single flower, which is of a bright red colour, smaller than the above, 

 and of an agreeable sweet scent. 



The second species has a creeping root, putting forlh tuberous 

 fibres, with tubercles the size of a hazel nut, white, fleshy, of a bit- 

 terish taste: the stem scarcely a foot high, and commonly single, but 

 in the garden eighteen inches high, and several from the same root: 

 the root-leaves none: the stem round, very obscurely grooved, 

 smooth, as is the whole plant, naked at bottom, having there only 

 a few sheathing scales: the leaves frequent, alternate, the upper ones 

 gradually less, on a round petiole, channelled above, quinate: the 

 leaflets cut into very many narrow segments: the upper leaves simply 

 multifid: the flower sessile at the uppermost leaf, subglobular, ac- 

 companied by two leaflets, one multifid, the other simple, both 

 dilated at the base. It is a native of the Ukraine. 



Culture. The single sorts are easily raised by seed, and the dou- 

 ble by parting the roots. 



The seed should be sown in autumn, soon after it is perfectly 

 ripened, or very early in the spring, (but the former is the better 

 season,) on a bed or border in the open ground where the soil is 

 rather light, raking it in lightly. It may also be sown in small 

 drills. 



The plants should afterwards be properly thinned, kept perfectly 

 free from weeds, and be occasionally watered when the weather is 

 hot and dry. 



As they should remain two seasons in the beds, it is necessary in 



