The Caucasian Representatives of the Genus Paeonia L.

L.M. Kemularia-Nathadse, Trudy Tiflis. Botan. Sada 1961

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Chapter IV

Systematic analysis of Caucasian species of the genus Paeonia L.


10. Paeonia Majko N. Ketzch.

N. Ketzchoweli in Notul. syst. ac geograph. Inst. Bot. Tiflis. fasc. 21 (1959) 17.

Perennials. The rhizome is branchy, nearly horizontal, with fusiform root thickenings; stem is high, densely leaved, with lasting lower leaves; leaves are green, thrice pinnately incised or dissected into narrow lanceolate 5-10 mm wide lacinules; leaf lobes of leaves at the root base are broader than for the upper leaves; flowers are large, pinkish-reddish-violet, broad patent; ovary and fruits are with dense tomentose pubescence formed by red hairs; fruits are short, oval or ovate.

Habitat. Foot-hills, margins of the oak-hornbeam forests.

Type. Georgia. Kartly. Between the vill. Lamitskali and Igoti, 16.V.1958, N. Ketskhoveli.

Studied samples. Kartly. The vill. Lamistskali, V.1949, Lumbadze.

Remarks. It is a very decorative, beautiful plant. With its leaves and pink flowers, it resembles P. hybrida Pall., growing on steppe meadows, open grassy or rocky slopes of hills in the West Siberia (Irtish, Altay) and the Middle Asia (Pamir, Altay, Tyan-Shyan), and having been described in Barnaul. Moreover, it has some resemblance with the peony, named as a hybrid. P. tenuifolia P. triternata which has been described by V. P. Maleev in 1937, in the Crimea ("Sovetskaya Botanica" 1937). Maleev asserts that his peony is a hybrid by reason of it having been found by V. F. Vasilyev by around the vill. Uzundja, upon the ridge Dara-Bayr, where these two Crimean peonies P. tenuifolia and P. triternata grow together.

Until the question of hybridity of this peony is solved through experiments, we accept the Maleevsky peony as a geographical race, just as P. Majko Ketzcch. and P. hybrida Pall, naming it P. Maleev Kem.-Nath. in honour of Maleev, and join all these peonies in the series Hybride Kem.-Nath.

It is necessary to point out at these peonies remote resemblance with P. anomala L. described in Siberia and typical for "the forest zone, exclusively" of the Europe part of the USSR. West and East Siberia and Middle Asia. The latter species is included into the series Dentatae Kom. ("Fl. USSR") along with P. hybrida Pall.; so Stern was quite right having established a series for it with the name Anomala group, which includes P. Veitchii Lynch, P. Beresowskii Kom. and P. Woodwardii Stapf., all of them from China.

Obviously, all above-mentioned species had a remote mutual ancestor which had been growing in forests of the tertiary period and being more close to P. anomala. As environmental conditions were changing and forest areas decreased, steppes began forming and new species of peonies started arising, from which the youngest species should be considered P. tenuifolia.