274 Account of double Herbaceous Paeonies. 



near London did not exceed sixteen, whereas our enquiries 

 have extended it to thirty, seven of which have double flowers. 



Two varieties of the P. officinalis, one with double red, 

 and the other with double white flowers, were known to the 

 older botanists and gardeners of this country, both being 

 described in Johnson's Gerrarde in 1636, and by Parkin- 

 son in his Paradisus in 1656 ; for though the latter calls his 

 second plant the double-blush, yet his account of it proves 

 that he meant to describe the same plant as his predecessor ; 

 their origin, I conceive, must have been in the latter part of 

 the preceding century. Camerarius, who published his 

 Hortus Medicus et Philosophicus at Frankfort in 1588, men- 

 tions the recent introduction at Antwerp of the double-red 

 Paeony, which he calls P.fcemina polyanthos. Lobel, in his 

 Icones, dated Antwerp 1581, having given a figure of it; and 

 Tabern^emontanus, in his Eicones, printed at Frankfort 

 in 1590, gives a representation of both these varieties, whence 

 we may conclude that the double-white was produced sub- 

 sequently, though almost immediately, after the double-red 

 Paeony. A third intermediate variety, with flesh-coloured 

 flowers, was produced in the next century, for we find that 

 Morison, Professor of Botany at Oxford, who died in 1683, 

 was acquainted with it, as it is described in the third Part of 

 his History of Plants, which after his death was edited by 

 Jacob Bobart, in 1699. 



The double-red Pceony, (P. officinalis rubra ) is the most 

 common ; few gardens are without it, and it generally is 

 one of those which decorate the small borders of the labourer s 

 cottage ; the colour is extremely brilliant, and the flower is 

 altogether the most splendid of the tribe, though, from being 



