CROWFOOT FAMILY 



The first Peony cultivated in New England and the Middle 

 States was the Double Red, which is still a favorite. It is not alto- 

 gether clear where this form developed, but it seems to have been 

 brought to Antwerp in the latter part of the fifteenth century and 

 from there very generally distributed. Probably, it was brought 

 to Manhattan by the Dutch; certain it is that for a long time the 

 only Peony of American gardens was the Red Peony. 



Peoma albifolia, the White-Flowered Peony is a plant of the 

 Northlands, credited in the books to Siberia. 



It is difficult to be absolutely certain of the typical form of 

 a plant which has long been in ctiltivation, but what is believed 

 to be the original form is eight to ten petalled, pure-white, delight- 

 fully fragrant, four to five inches in diameter, rather cup-shaped 

 and in the centre is a cluster of bright-yellow stamens. By 

 crossing the different varieties of Pceonia officinalis with Pceonia 

 albifiora, the race of double Peonies ranging from pure-white to 

 deep-crimson was produced. ■ In the development of the varieties 

 of to-day another strain has contributed; this is the Moutan or 

 Tree Peony of China and Japan, the only woody Peony of the 

 world. 



The first of the Moutans were brought into England in 1789; 

 others soon followed. They came in many forms and of varied 

 colors; for these were by no means Peonies in the raw, they had 

 behind them more than a thousand years of such cultivation as 

 only Japanese gardeners know how to give. Some of them had 

 been double so long that they had forgotten how to be single. 

 Others were in single form; one of these the so-called "poppy- 

 flowered," white with a purple spot at the base of each petal is 

 believed to be the original wild form, but no one really knows. 

 Their color range swept from pure-white and flesh through a 

 marvellous group of salmon-pinks to a lemon-yellow and an in- 

 tense tawny-red. 



As a result of hybridization and selection there has been pro- 

 duced the present garden race, which, counting those in Europe 

 and this country, numbers something over a thousand named 

 varieties. 



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