LIBRARY 
WR Boy we wr OP ORD 
% JAN 35-1945 


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LAA WDA me / U. % Department ef Agrioulouse 


From the pastel by Nassos Daphnis 
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HISTORY 
The Tree Peony of China was known as “The King of 
Flowers” and the common herbaceous Peony as “The King’s 
Ministers”. In»paintings, poetry, and medical texts, refer- 
ences to cultivated forms of it extend back into Chinese his- 
tory for more than 1400 years. As years went by, tree peonies 
became more and more widely known, especially 1n connection 
with the gardens of the imperial palaces where they never 
failed to astonish the beholder, “rows upon rows of them 
arranged in narrow shallow —terraces, piled up one behind 
another — ablaze with blossom’. ~As early as 1785 a single 
plant was secured for Kew Gardens in England; but it was 
left to Robert Fortune, the explorer-botanist, to go into Cen- 
tral China and bring back the finest flowers in 1846. ‘To him 
we owe the wonderful description of a mandarin sitting for 
hours smoking, drinking tea, and gazing at a Tree Peony cov- 
ered with 400 flowers. 
