NAT. ORDER. 
Banunculacece. 
i 
P^ONIA EDULIS REEVESIANA. TREE PEONY. 
Class XIII. Polyandria. Order II Digynia. 
Gen. Char. Calyx, of five sepals, leafy, persisting. Corolla, of five 
or of many petals, without claws. Stamens, below the germen. 
Style, none. Stigmas, from three to five. Capsules, three or 
five. 
Spe. Char. Boots, thick, fleshy. Stems, many. Leaves, lanceolate. 
The root is bulbous, fleshy, smooth, of a light yellow color, and 
near the base sends off a numerous quantity of small succulent 
fibres ; the stem is upright, round, smooth, of a pale reddish-green 
color, and rises from two to four feet in height ; the flowers are large, 
of a deep blood-red, sometimes tinged with purple, and stand singly 
upon long footstalks ; carpels folicular, from two to five, large, many- 
seeded, and terminated with thick bilamellate stigmas ; seeds rather 
globose and shining. 
No plant, mentioned by Kempfer and Thunberg, in their Floras 
of China and Japan, excited greater interest among European bot- 
anists, than did the Tree Peony, or Moutan of the Chinese. The 
officers to the East India Company, whether residents at, or visitors 
of Canton, were frequently commissioned to enquire for and obtain 
this plant. Several single plants were received from time to time, 
between the years 1785 and 1790, which went to Kew. These, 
however, being treated as stove plants, uniformly failed : but a fresh 
supply of plants was purchased at Canton, and taken to England 
by Mr. Main, in 1794, consigned to Sir Joseph Banks and others. 
Vol. iii. — 87. 
