486 On the Paeonia Moutan, or Tree Pa3ony, tyc. 



noir, et bleu' in great variety. Some are represented to 

 possess considerable fragrance. Accounts of the way of 

 cultivating the Moutans in China are also given ; they appear 

 to be propagated from seed, and by other modes of increase 

 which will be noticed hereafter. I do not place much re- 

 liance on the correctness of the details in this memoir, which 

 extends to several pages; and I am incredulous, not only as 

 to some of the colours of the flowers, which are said to exist, 

 but also as to the extent in number of the varieties. 



The provinces and places above mentioned, are in the 

 northern and central parts of the Chinese Empire, and the 

 habits of the Moutan evidently exhibit an high mountainous, 

 or alpine origin, subject to being buried under snow during 

 the winter. They make strong shoots early in spring, and 

 break rapidly into foliage, and blossom. 



In the description of China, published by Duhalde, in 

 1753, very little notice is taken of the Moutans; they are 

 described* under the general name of Pivoines, as being of 

 different colours, and some of them fragrant. A brief notice 

 of the Moutans in the gardens at Canton, will be found+ in 

 Dr. Abel's Account of Lord Amherst's Embassy to Pekin 

 m 1816 ; but it contains no information respecting them which 

 is not herein stated. They are not mentioned, as far as I 

 have discovered, in the accounts of other travellers in China. 



It must be concluded that the Moutans were transferred 

 from China to Japan, where they are cultivated; but they 

 do not appear, however, to have been introduced in much 

 variety into the latter country. K^mpfer, in the fifth 

 fasciculus of his Amaenitates Exotica., printed in 1712, 



Duhalde, Des 



i de la Chine, Tom. i. page 24. f Page 220. 



