42 GARDENING WITH BRAINS ^^ 



placed on fragrance. There are a great many 

 varieties of peonies — more than a thousand — 

 and a large proportion, while lovely to look at, 

 are unscented or even have an unpleasant odor. 

 Mrs. Edward Harding devotes nineteen pages 

 of her superbly illustrated Book of the Peony 

 (Lippincott) to a list of 125 superior varieties, 

 marking those which are fragrant with an X 

 and excluding the ill -smelling varieties alto- 

 gether. The rose peony has an odor singularly 

 and deliciously like that of the rose. Other 

 sorts vary in odor almost as widely as in color 

 markings. In the Bulletin of the American 

 Peony Society (No. 2, 1916) A. H. Fewkes 

 calls attention to the curious fact that color 

 seems to have some influence on odor. While 

 the full double rose-pink varieties are the most 

 fragrant, the single or semidouble reds are 

 inclined to be ill smelling, and the full double 

 reds, in most instances, lack odor entirely. The 

 scented kinds run "the entire gamut from a 

 pleasant freshness of odor up to intoxicating 

 fragrance." 



To speak of the "intoxicating" fragrance of 

 some peonies is no exaggeration; nor does Mrs. 

 Harding use too strong language when, in writing 

 about the wonderful shapes and texture and 

 colors of peonies, with their glossy silken petals 

 in a hundred shades, tints, and combinations of 

 white, pink, yellow, and red, she declares that 

 "one who sees for the first time typical speci- 



