336 Some Remarks on the Tree PiBony, 



selling the most common kinds for those quite rare; and this, too, 

 when the rare ones, to us, are as abundant in their gardens as the 

 more common. So often have purchasers been deceived in this 

 manner, that, from the hundreds of plants that have been import- 

 ed into England, as yet, according to most writers, onl}' five or 

 six are, in reality, dissimilar. Mr. Sabine, however, in the 

 Horticultural Transactions^ enumerates seven; and in the Hor- 

 tus Britannicus, eleven Chinese varieties are registered. 



Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to notice some of the 

 names and colors of the varieties which are said still to exist in 

 the Chinese gardens. That there are a great number we have 

 no reason to doubt. The Chinese are great lovers of beautiful 

 plants, and, although they do not possess a knowledge of vegeta- 

 ble physiology, sufficient to enable them to procure new kinds 

 vi'ith any certainty, yet they spare no exertions to do so as far as 

 their knowledge extends, as we may infer from the number of 

 kinds of camellias and other plants which have been introduced. 

 Various travellers have made great statements in regard to the 

 varieties of paeonies they possess; too great reliance is, however, 

 not to be placed upon them, for perhaps they have been deceiv- 

 ed. The only good evidence of any such existing is to be de- 

 rived from the drawings which have been made by good artists, 

 and w^ho have colored them accurately from actually growing plants. 

 Of such, five were executed at Canton, in 1806, for the library 

 of the East India Company, and copies of them have been made 

 for the London Horticultural Society. Two of them are refer- 

 able to the P. jiapaveracea Banksrce and rosea. The third is 

 called the Tsu JMoutan^ the first name indicative of the color, 

 and has fine purple blossoms. The fourth is the Pae JWoutan, 

 with double white flowers. The latter is of slender growth; it is 

 very scarce and highly esteemed. Mr. Sabine, in a paper in the 

 Horticultural Transactions, to which we are indebted for the 

 information in regard to the history of the tree paeony, states, that 

 one of the double purple JYIoutans was purchased (about the year 

 1820) by an American captain, in order to be carried home. 

 But we have never heard of such a variety, and it was, in all 

 |)robability, lost on the voyage. The fifth drawing is called the 

 Hong Moutan Fa, and is said to be a yellow (?) flower. It is 

 said to have been taken from a plant which flowered in the house 

 of a mandarin at Canton, in February, 1810. This, however, 

 was not believed when this statement was published, and the ex- 

 istence of a yellow variety is considered very doubtful. Stories 

 are current at Canton, that they have them of all colors, even 

 blue and black (?)- Mr. Main, who went out to China in the 

 year 1792, for Gilbert Slater, Esq., states, in a late paper, enti- 

 tled " Reminiscences of a Voyage to and from China," in Pax- 



