HERBAC E 0 U S PM ONIES. 



423 



has only the double forms I mentioned at the beginning of this 

 paper as forming the groundwork on which the florists worked. 



With these data, finding it was about 1840 that the sale of the 

 first raised seedlings began, I sought information from two of the 

 English plantsmen who are still amongst us, Mr. Robert Parker 

 and Mr. Salter. Mr. Parker's first recollection of a collection 

 of named sorts was that of Mr. Loddige, about 1845. But the 

 collections in his nursery w T ere disposed of, if I recollect aright, 

 about 1858, and I have no catalogue except a page or two used 

 in the binding of a small volume of Scott's poems, but, un- 

 happily, it is not the Pa?ony page. Mr. Parker sent me some 

 bound copies of Salter's lists from 1855, and Mr. Salter kindly 

 writes : " My father began to form his collection about 1850 with 

 the species— such as eduHs (albiflora), Pottsi and Beevesi from 

 Osborn's, others from the Angers nurseries, also four from Van 

 Houtte and Van Geert in Belgium, and some few were our own 

 seedlings raised at Hammersmith. This is all I remember about 

 it, except that they had a large sale and we were quite unable to 

 execute the orders for such varieties as grandiflora nivea plena , 

 lutea plenissimc, pulchmm, prolifera tricolor, &c." In the 

 catalogues of 1855 these four sorts appear, and, as far as I have 

 dissected the lists, some twenty other double sorts. 



Of this list four sorts are in my last year's catalogue and 

 nine in Mr. Barr's list of this spring. The names of these kinds 

 still grown are : — 



P. grandiflora nivea, nivalis, anemonceflora striata, earnca 

 elccjans, Duchesse d'Orleans, Reine des Francais, jJTolifera tricolor, 

 grandiflora rosea, Humci cdba, and Pottsi. 



So far the English record ; but as the raisers were in the 

 earlier days of the herbaceous Preony mostly French or Belgian, 

 I sought out from those distinguished florists M. Lemoine, of 

 Nancy, and M. Keteleer, of Paris, both of whom had been 

 growers of Paeonies from the very beginning of their culture, 

 a record of the French raisers. I saw M. Keteleer on Satur- 

 day, and he kindly gave me all the information required, which 

 was confirmed independently by communications from M. 

 Lemoine. 



The first raisers were M. Lemon pere, of the Porte St. 

 Denis, Paris, about 1824 : his kinds were mostly obtained from 

 P. officinalis syn. sinensis, and amongst his earliest varieties 



