224 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
The Paeony (P. corallina ) is sometimes allowed a place in 
the British flora, having been found apparently wild at the 
Steep Holmes in the Bristol Channel and a few other places, 
but it is now considered certain that in all these places it is a 
garden escape. Gerard gave one such habitat: “ The male 
Peionie groweth wilde upon a Coneyberry in Betsome, being 
in the parish of Southfleet, in Kent, two miles from Gravesend, 
and in the ground sometimes belonging to a farmer there, 
called John Bradley;” but on this his editor adds the 
damaging note: “I have been told that our author himselfe 
planted that Peionee there, and afterwards seemed to find it 
there by accident; and I do believe it was so, because none 
before or since have ever seen or heard of it growing wild 
since in any part of this kingdome.” 
But though not a native plant, it had been cultivated in 
England long before Shakespeare’s and Gerard’s time. It 
occurs in most of the old vocabularies from the tenth century 
downwards, and in Shakespeare’s time the English gardens 
had most of the European species that are now grown, in¬ 
cluding also the handsome double-red and white varieties. 
Since his time the number of species and varieties has been 
largely increased by the addition of the Chinese and Japanese 
species, and by the labours of the French nursery-men, who 
have paid more attention to the flower than the English. 
In the hardy flower garden there is no more showy family 
than the Pasony. They have flowers of many colours, from 
almost pure white and pale yellow to the richest crimson; and 
they vary very much in their foliage, most of them having 
large fleshy leaves, “not much unlike the leaves of the Walnut 
tree,” but some of them having their leaves finely cut and 
divided almost like the leaves of Fennel (. Ptenuifolia ). They 
further vary in that some are herbaceous, disappearing entirely 
in winter, while others, Moutan or Tree Paeonies, are shrubs; 
and in favourable seasons, when the shrub is not injured by 
spring frosts, there is no grander shrub than an old Tree 
Paeony in full flower. 
Of the many different species the best are the Moutans, 
