368 Some Remarks on the Tree Pceony. 



therefore extract only such as is interesting and useful to our 

 readers. 



Pxonia Moutan papaveracea. — This plant has heen adopted 

 as the type of the species, in consequence of its having single 

 flowers. It has not been called papaveracea, or poppy-flowered, 

 on account of the resemblance of the flower to a poppy, as many 

 suppose, but because its germens, when enveloped by their 

 membraneous covering, resemble a capsule or seed vessel of the 

 common poppy Papaver somniferum. When first described in 

 1807, in Andrews's Repository^ it was considered a distinct spe- 

 cies: it was also considered as distinct from the varieties above- 

 named, by Sir James Edward Smith, in Rees''s Cyclopmdia^ 

 and adopted as such on the ground of a supposed specific dissimi- 

 larity, founded on its germens being always enclosed by a mem- 

 brane; but it is now considered that this circumstance would ap- 

 pear in the varieties if the seed vessels were not multiplied be- 

 yond their natural number. The flowers are sometimes semi- 

 double, but this does not frequently happen unless the plants are 

 old and of strong growth; their expansion is about ten inches, 

 sometimes more; the petals are very large and broad; they spread 

 out, but are not reflexed; they are white, with a deep purple 

 spot on the lower part (or base) of each petal; the spots are 

 rayed, in lines about an inch and a half long, from the centre, 

 forming a brilliant and rich star in the middle of the flower: the 

 edges of the petals are a httle jagged. The anthers are yellow, 

 and are very conspicuously interposed between the dark spots on 

 the petals and the deep purple case of the germens, the stigmas 

 appearing united at the top of it. The germens are stated by 

 some writers who have described them, as being six; but five is 

 the usual number. The blossoms emit a rather unpleasant odor, 

 common in many of the jRanunculaceffi, more particularly in all 

 the tree paeonies. It has been figured in the Botanical Maga- 

 zine^ t. 2175, and Loddiges' Botanical Cabinet, t. 547. The 

 foliage of the plant is distinguished from the variety rosea, by its 

 petioles being tinged with red, and the folioles a darker green; 

 the leaves of the Bankstce are similar, in having a tinge of red on 

 the petioles, and in the darker hue of the foholes, but those of 

 jjapaveracea are generally larger. The largest plant' of this spe- 

 cies in England was lately growing at Wormleybury, the seat of 

 Sir Abraham Hume. It was introduced in 1802, and flowered 

 for the first time in 180G. In 1826 the plant had attained to a 

 great size, forming a hush o{ forty feet in circumference and seven 

 feet high. In the month of April it is covered with its splendid 

 flowers, and in the year last named, it produced six hundred and 

 sixty flower-buds, one hundred and thirty of which were picked 

 off in order to increase the size of the remaining flowers. At 

 the time Mr. Sabine's paper was written it was believed that no 



