470 On the Paeonia Moutan, or Tree Paeony, $c. 



enclosed by a membrane ; but it is now considered that this 

 circumstance would appear in the other varieties, if their seed 

 vessels were not multiplied by luxuriance beyond their 

 natural number, and it exists in all, when the difficulty 

 alluded to, does not prevent it * The P. Moutan Papave- 

 racea was imported by Captain James Pendergras, in the 

 Hope East Indiaman, for Sir Abraham Hume, in 1802, 

 and the plant first blossomed in 1806.+ I do not believe 

 that any other plant of the variety has been brought from 

 China, and if the fact be so, Sir Abraham Hume's is the parent 

 of the whole stock now in Europe. Doubts were long en- 

 tertained whether it was not an accidental production, and 

 consequently a stranger in the Chinese gardens ; but the 

 Horticultural Society has lately received a drawing of it, 

 made for them at Canton from a living specimen, which 

 proves its distinct present existence in China. Sir Abraham 

 Hume's plant at Wormleybury has attained a considerable 

 size, forming a bush of near forty feet in circumference, and 

 seven feet in height, which in the month of April is covered 

 with its splendid flowers in almost unrivalled magnificence. 

 In the past spring of this year it produced 660 flower-buds, 



* The error of considering this as a distinct species, originated with the 

 Editor of Andrews's Repository, in the folio above quoted. Dr. Sims, in the 

 Botanical Magazine, folio 1154, expressed his doubt of the propriety of this 

 separation; it was however adhered to by Sir James Edward Smith, in his 

 account of the genus in Rees's Cyclopaedia ; but the matter was entirely put right, 

 and the question finally settled by Dr. Sims, subsequently, in the Botanical 

 Magazine, folio 2175. He had very justly observed that if the distinction was 

 natural, it would constitute a generic, not a specific difference. 



f Not 1800, as noted in Rees's Cyclopaedia. It is erroneously stated in Mr. 

 Anderson's account of the plant in the Linnean Transactions, as having been 

 introduced about 1806. The date of 1805 in the Botanical Cabinet is also wrong- 



