1882.] 
THE TREE P®ONY, 
189 
Miss Barr, Miss Meilde, Mrs. D. Wallace, 
Mrs. Mackenzie, white grounds; Robert Pol¬ 
lock, Win. Robin, Dr. Livingstone, Jas. Bu¬ 
chanan, A. Henderson, A. Cameron, Baillie 
Cochrane, yellow grounds. The 1st prize 
for 24 fancy Pansies, dissimilar, was won 
by Messrs. Downie & Laird, Edinburgh, who 
staged large well-grown flowers, many of them 
over 8 inches in diameter, of the follow¬ 
ing varieties :—Countess of Home, James 
Gardner, May Tate (seedling), Mrs. W. 
Brown, John Murray, Mrs. Forsyth, Miss 
Tofts, W. Cuthbertson, Miss Bliss, Maggie 
Bell, Mrs. J. Cocker, General Grant, Mrs. 
James Watt, Mrs. Barrie, Ruby (seedling), 
Peter Nicol, Mrs. W. Murray, Robert Laird, 
Mrs. Taylor, Catherine Agnes, Mrs. G. Grant, 
and three unnamed seedlings.—M. 
THE TREE P^IONY. 
I T is much to be regretted that this fine 
plant, the Pceonia Moutan, with its 
numberless fine distinct varieties, should 
1 he so little grown as it is in this country. 
True, it is of precocious habit, and comes so 
early into flower as often to suffer from our 
too frequent spring frosts ; but such a glorious 
plant is well worth protecting, and a very 
slight degree of shelter should suffice, since it 
is not the winter frosts that harm the plant, 
which is capable of enduring all but our 
severest cold, but the spring frosts which catch 
the tender budding flowers. 
Shortly before his death, Mr. Fortune 
published some very interesting particulars 
respecting the Tree Pseony in the Gardeners' 
Chronicle (n. s., xiii., 179). He states that the 
Tree Paeony is found wild on the mountains of 
the central provinces of China, and is cultivated 
as a garden plant in all parts of the Empire. 
It was first seen by Europeans in the gardens 
about Canton, the Canton gardeners carrying 
on a large trade with the Moutan growers, who 
bring the plants yearly from the provinces of 
Hoo-nan and the western parts of Kiang-nan, 
a distance of at least 1,000 miles. This takes 
place in winter, when the plants are leafless 
and in a state of rest. The roots are packed 
in baskets, open at the top, with scarcely any 
soil adhering to them, and in this simple 
manner are distributed without injury over 
all the Empire. On their arrival in Canton 
they are potted, and as soon as the flower- 
buds are fairly formed, the plants are eagerly 
bought up, to ornament balconies, halls and 
gardens. The Moutan, when brought into 
the hot climate of the south, will not thrive 
for any length of time ; strong and vigorous 
when received, it blooms well the first year, 
but, being deprived of its natural period of 
rest—that is, a cold winter—it soon gets out 
of health, and consequently the Southern 
Chinese rarely attempt to preserve it after it 
has once bloomed, but keep up the constant 
yearly trade with the Moutan country. Thus 
we learn that we may give the Moutan as 
much heat as we like in summer, but it must 
have a period of cold perfect rest in winter. 
The propagation and management of the 
plant seem to be much better understood by 
the Chinese than by our own growers, who 
complain that they cannot propagate it with 
facility. The Chinese method of propagation 
is by grafting. In the beginning of October, 
large quantities of the roots of one of the 
herbaceous Pseonies are collected, to be used 
as stocks for the Moutan. The bundles of 
tubers which form the root are pulled in 
pieces, and each of the finger-like rootlets 
forms a stock to be grafted. The scions used 
are not more than from 1^ to 2 inches in 
length, and consist of the points of the shoots 
formed during the preceding summer. The 
base of each scion is cut in the form of a 
wedge, and inserted in the crown of the finger¬ 
like tuber, which is then tied up and clayed 
round in the usual way, and the operation is 
complete. When a large number have been 
thus prepared, they are taken to the nursery, 
where they are planted in rows about 1~ foot 
apart, with the same distance between the 
rows. In planting, the bud at the point of 
the scion is the only part which is left above 
ground, the part where the union is destined 
to take place being always buried beneath the 
surface. 
Many thousands of plants are grafted in 
this manner every autumn, and it is rare that 
a graft fails to grow. In about a fortnight 
the union is complete, and in the following 
spring the plants are well established and 
strong, and frequently produce blossoms. A 
plant which has only one stem and one flower- 
bud, is of more value in the eyes of the 
Shanghai nurseryman than when it becomes 
larger.—T. M. 
