Hardy and Half-hardy Plants 



79 



for market. Indeed the species themselves are not grown at all, but the 

 magnificent double-flowered forms that have been raised from them. These 

 have emanated chiefly from P. albiflora (or P, edulis), a Siberian plant, 

 2-3 ft. high with beautiful white or pale-pink flowers; and from P. 

 officinalis, a red or crimson species from South Europe. -P. corallina, a 

 crimson or rose-red form, naturalized in parts of Britain, and P. pere- 

 grina, bright crimson, both have had something to do with the production 

 of the modern garden forms. What 

 are known as Chinese Paeonies are 

 derived from P. Pottsi and P. 

 Reevesi, and the Anemone-flowered 

 Paeonies are said to have come from 

 P. officinalis and P. paradoxa. 



These are all hardy herbaceous 

 deciduous perennials, and are thus 

 easily distinguished from the Tree 

 or Moutan Paeonies (P. Moutan), a 

 Chinese and Japanese species which 

 has woody stems and large gor- 

 geously coloured flowers having a 

 wide range of colour from white to 

 rose, salmon, lilac, scarlet, magenta, 

 violet, &c. A newer kind, P. lutea, 

 also from China, has yellow flower, 

 and in the course of time we may 

 expect the hybridist to utilize it 

 for the creation of new varieties. 



As market plants the herba- 

 ceous Paeonies are now grown 

 extensively in some Middlesex 

 market gardens, chiefly for cut 



flowers. They are planted be- 

 neath standard and half-standard 



Fig. 232. Paeony Drooping Disease (Sclerotinia pceonice) 



1, Summer form of fruit (magnified 400). 2, Minute black 

 sclerotia formed in dying leaf-stalks close to the ground. 

 When the leaf-stalk decays these sclerotia rest in the soil 

 until the following spring, when they produce spores as 



Apple Pear and Plum trees about shown in fig. 3, which infect the young leaf -stalks as they 

 * . . . push through the soil (magnified 100). 4, Spores produced 



2 it. apart every Way, thUS giving by sclerotium germinating in the soil (magnified 100). 



about 8000 plants to the acre, 



after allowing for the trees and pathways. The plants like a good, rich 

 and well-manured soil, and, once established, flower profusely year after 

 year. A good plant will average a dozen fine flowers per annum, so that 

 80,000 to 100,000 blooms per acre may be taken as a fair crop. At 3d. 

 per bunch of twelve flowers this means a gross yield of 100 to 125 

 per acre. Sometimes, however, there are enormous quantities sent to 

 market, the bunches being simply taken up loose in van loads, and the 

 prices may then average only Id. per bunch. Only a few kinds the deep- 

 crimson, the white, and a deep-rose variety are grown in market gardens, 

 but there are now so many lovely shades of rose and pink that the 



