1208 
PAONIA* hybrida. 
Hybrid Peony. 
POLYANDRIA TRI-PENTAGY NIA. 
Nat. ord. RANUNCULACER. 
PHONIA.— Supra, vol. 1. fol. 42. 
SS eee 
P. hybrida; herbacea, folliculis recurvatis pubescentibus, foliis multipar- 
titis: laciniis linearibus acuminatis glabris, flore cernuo foliis longiore. 
P. hybrida, Pall. fl. ross. 2. p. 94. t. 86. Willd. sp. pl. 2. 1223. Ait. 
Kew. ed. 2. 3. 316. Smith in Rees, in loco, no. 10. Decand. syst. 
1. 393 ; prodr. 1.66. Bieb, fl. taur. cauc. 2.11. et 3. 367. 
This is the most beautiful of the cut-leaved Ponies, 
from all which it differs strikingly in the deeper red of its 
flowers. At the time of publishing the Monograph of 
‘Peonia in the Zransactions of the Linnean Society, no other 
knowledge was possessed of this than was to be gathered. 
from the figure and account given of it by Pallas in his 
Flora Rossica; and from these imperfect materials it was 
referred to P. tenuifolia, as a mere variety. 
Within a few years roots have been obtained by the 
Horticultural Society from several quarters, and the study 
of them in a growing state has now made it evident that 
it is a genuine species. At least, we have Mr. Sabine’s 
oe a eee 
* So named by the ancients in memory of Peon, the physician whom 
Homer records as having cured Pluto with this herb, when he was wounded 
by Hercules. We presume its virtues are altogether reserved for such 
august occasions, they having never been made manifest on any other, as 
far as we know. The atone of Dioscorides evidently appears, by his very 
particular description, to be our plant. What he distinguishes by the 
gratuitous appellation of male and female, are now acknowledged to be two 
species, though Linneeus considers them as varieties of one, by the name of 
P. officinalis. — Smith in Rees’ Cycl. 
