BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae. 
w 
° There aretwokindsof Peony. Thisisa 
Wild Peony 2 ‘ : 
Paeonia Brownii TODuSt and very decorative perennial, rich 
Dark-red and unusual in coloring, the fine foliage set- 
Winter, spring _ ting off the dark flowers to perfection. The 
Wash., Oreg., Cal. -oots are woody, the stems smooth, from 
eight inches to a foot and a half tall, and the leaves are 
smooth, rich green, but not shiny. The nodding flowers 
are an inch and a half across, with five or six greenish- 
purple sepals, five or six petals, rich deep-red, tinged and 
streaked with yellow and maroon; dull-yellow stamens and 
green pistils. The whole flower is quite thick and leathery 
in texture and rather coarse, sometimes so dark that it is 
almost black. The flowers are often fragrant, but the 
plant has a disagreeable smell, something like Skunk- 
cabbage, when crushed. The large seed-pods, usually five, 
are thick, leathery and smooth, with several seeds and are 
a very conspicuous feature, the stems drooping as they 
ripen and the pods resting on the ground in big bunches. 
The whole plant is rather succulent and the foliage and 
stems are more or less tinged with red and have a ‘‘bloom,”’ 
especially on the sepals. This grows in all sorts of places, 
in the hot plains of the south and at the edge of the snow, in 
northern, mountain canyons. In the south it blooms in 
January and is sometimes called Christmas-rose. The 
root is used medicinally by the Spanish-Californians and 
by the Indians, ‘‘to give their horses long wind.” These 
plants were named in honor of Paion, the physician of the 
gods. 
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