chapter IV

HISTORY OF PAEONY LITERATURE

part 3 1801- 1900

1804 The great tree paeony of China, introduced to English gardens by the agency of Sir Joseph Banks in 1787, was first described and figured in Andrews' Botanists' Repository under the name of P.suffruticosa, t. 373. The plant illustrated is a large double-flowered pink form and the text by Adrian Hardy Haworth says that only double-flowered forms have been received from China ; another purple variety is depicted in 7, t. 448, in 1807.

1807 In Andrews' Repository, 7, t. 463, the first single-flowered form of-P.suffruticosa is figured as P.papaveracea from the garden of Lady Hume at Wormley Bury, Herts ; this flower is white with deep maroon blotches at the base of the petals and the disc enveloping the carpels is coloured purple. It is interesting to find in the Botanical Register, vol. 5, t. 379 (1819), the figure of a semi-double-flowered variety, which is said to be the first produce of a plant received from China by Sir Abraham Hume. Then again in 17, t. 1456 (1831), a semi-double white variety is illustrated which was raised from seed by the Earl of Mountnorris at Arley Hall, Worcestershire, and in 20, t. 1678 (1834), and 21, t. 1771 (1835), a double white form and a double pink form are figured which were raised by Lord Mountnorris from seed of Hume's P.papaveracea.

1804 In order to facilitate correspondence with strangers Desfontaines, in 1804, published Tableau de I'Ecole de botanique du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, giving a list of the plants growing in the garden there. Most of the paeony species known at that time are tabulated, and it is of interest that P.mascula L. and P.corallina Retz. are bracketed together as are also P.femina L. and P.officinalis Retz. and also P.villosa and P.humilis Retz. This is the first time P.villosa is mentioned, by name only, and P.humilis is given as a synonym. In his third edition of this catalogue (1829) P.villosa is bracketed with P.mollis, with a reference to Anderson's account of P.mollis in Botanical Register, t. 474 (1820).

1806 In 22, t. 1513, of Sowerby and Smith's English Botany there is a poor plate of P.corallina, i.e. P.mascula, but the text records that F. B. Wright found this paeony in 1803 growing abundantly in the rocky clefts of the Island of Steep Hoime in the River Severn, and two fishermen told him " they could recollect it growing there 60 or 70 years ago."

1807 In 7, t. 486, of Andrews' Repository, there is a good figure of P.daurica, and in 8, t. 514 (1808), there is a good figure of P.anomala which the text says flowered for the first time in England in July 1807 in the garden of John Bell, near Brentford.

1811 G. L. M. Dumont de Courset in the second edition of his book Le Botaniste Cultivateur also gives P.villosa Desfontaines as a synonym of P.humilis Retz. from Spain.

1816 Bivona in Stirpium Rariorum Sicilia describes Paeonia Russi for the first time as coming from the hills in Sicily.

1807-1826 In theBotanical Magazine, during the editorship of John Sims, several paeonies were illustrated and described. The plate of P.peregrina of 26, t. 1050 (1807), has already been referred to. This is not P.peregrina Miller either from the description or the plate. Sims says " it is upon the authority [end page 130] of the Banksian Herbarium that we give this as the Paeonia peregrina of Miller." From the 1808 illustration and description it might be P.arietina or P.humilis var. villosa. In 29, t. 1154 (1808), a great double-flowered form of P.Moutan is illustrated which Sims considered might be the same species as P.papaveracea of Andrews.

1811-1812 In 35 there are excellent plates and descriptions of P.humilis, t. 1422, and P.daurica, t. 1441 ; the latter shows perfectly the unique shape of the leaflets. In 42, t. 1754, P.anomala is well described and illustrated, and t. 1756 depicts a white form of P.albiflora, a species now known as 1815 P.lactiflora which is said to be a native of Siberia beyond Lake Baikal. Sims mentions the sweet scent of the flowers and that double forms, which were all sweet-scented, were known at that time, and also says that the roots of this paeony were eaten as soup by the inhabitants in Siberia. In the same volume a red double-flowered herbaceous paeony is depicted, t. 1768, as P.edulis var. sinensis, which is no doubt a form of P.albiflora, but Sims says "in this instance the name of albiflora is so perfectly absurd, that we have felt a necessity of avoiding it" and so adopted the above name for it; no doubt because the natives of Siberia are said to eat it!

1815 In the Botanical Magazine, t. 1784, there is a paeony depicted under the name of P.officinalis which looks more like P.peregrina.

1820 P.Moutan var. papaveracea is illustrated in 47, t. 2175 ; this plate was drawn from either a seedling or layer of the plant of Sir Abraham Hume which was figured in Andrews' Repository.

1821 In 48, t. 2264, a paeony is depicted and described as P.pubens. This plant had been received from Paris under the name of P.lobata but from the description and plate it looks more like P.arietina.

1826 P.sessiliflora is figured in 53, t. 2648 ; this is the white-flowered form of P.mollis; the plate was drawn from a cultivated plant and the text says the native country is unknown.

1817-1818 In these years two important works on paeonies were published ; George Anderson wrote the first monograph of the genus which appeared in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, 12, dated 1817, and published in 1818, and A. P.de Candolle described thirteen species of paeonies and mentioned four others in his Systema, dated 1818, but published in November 1817 before Anderson's monograph had appeared.

De Candolle describes P.Moutan, P.albiflora, P.anomala and P.tenuifolia; all these names are well known but the first two have been changed owing to the priority of the previous names of P.suffruticosa and P.lactiflora. Under P.officinalis De Candolle quotes P.foemina. For P.daurica he has accepted Andrews' name and quotes the Botanical Magazine (1811), where there is an excellent illustration of this paeony, showing well the undulate margins of the leaflets—a unique character of this plant—and gives as habitat " Dauria, according to Sims " and " Tauria, according to Pallas." He adopts Retzius' name of P.humilis for the Spanish paeony, quoting Clusius, also instancing P.humilis Besler and P.villosa Desfontaines; P.tartarica Miller is mentioned with the note " non satis nota " against it. De Candolle notes under P.hybrida that although Pallas had first taken this to be a hybrid arisen in the Petrograd garden between P.anomala and P.tenuifolia, he had later in the Crimea found a plant considered to be the same, and De Candolle's correspondent, F. E. L. Fischer, asserted that it was not a hybrid but a genuine species. P.laciniata Willd. non Pallas is indicated as a doubtful species, possibly a mere variety of P.tenuifolia. Under P.corallina he quotes P.mas [end page 131] and says the habitat among other places is Siberia and the Balearic Islands. The confusion about P.peregrina is continued with the names of P.peregrina and P.lobata. Under P.peregrina he quotes P.promiscua Bauhin, P.officinalis Linnaeus, " ex herb. non ex syn.," and Miller's P.peregrina and says the habitat is southern France and northern Italy ; under P.lobata Desfontaines he quotes Clusius's name of P.Byzantina and Miller's name of P.lusitanica De Jussieu ; he thus mixed up the plants from the Balkans and the plants from Spain or Portugal. The name of P.lobata Desfontaines is invalid as it had not previously been associated with a description, and later in his Prodromus De Candolle restricted this name to the Portuguese plant and accepted Anderson's name of P.decora for the Balkan plant.

P.cretica is mentioned as hardly known, both Clusius and Bauhin being quoted.

1817-1818 The plants examined by George Anderson were mostly those paeonies brought together at North Mimms by Joseph Sabine, secretary from 1816 to 1830 to the Horticultural Society ; these plants were collected from different gardens. He divided the genus into shrubby and herbaceous plants ; the latter were again divided into those with glabrous leaves and those with leaves pubescent underneath. Anderson proposed several new names for the paeonies he described. The new name of P.decora is given to Clusius's P.Byzantina prior which is no doubt P.peregrina Miller and the name of P.peregrina (as already described on page 127), is used, following De Candolle, to fit the paeony from the south of France, although under P.peregrina oc byzantina he quotes Clusius but also quotes P.peregrina of the Botanical Magazine, t. 1050 (1807), which depicts the south of France paeony " on the authority of the Banksian Herbarium."

P.arietina is a new name for a species which he divides into two varieties, oc Andersonii and oxoniensis. Anderson says the first variety is presumed to be a native of the Levant, and with regard to the var. oxoniensis he follows Morison (1699) and suggests the paeony from the Oxford Botanic Garden to be P.cretica of Clusius, and names it as above. This confusion was responsible for this plant from the Oxford Botanic Garden being figured and described in the Botanical Register (1824) wrongly as P.cretica. Anderson's two varieties are only separated by a slight difference in the petals. The description and the plate in the Botanical Register (1824) fits the paeony common in Asia Minor and the name P.arietina has been retained for that paeony.

P.mollis is described for the first time. This paeony, well figured in the Botanical Register, 6, t. 474 (1820), was said to have been raised from seed sent to Messrs. Loddiges by Pallas. It is still found in gardens but no wild specimens are preserved in herbaria so it is surmised that P.mollis is of garden origin.

P.paradoxa is also a new name. From the description it seems to agree with P.humilis but for its tomentose carpels. This name of paradoxa might have been used as a varietal name of P.humilis to describe the south of France paeonies which only differ from P.humilis by the tomentose carpels, but the varietal name of villosa is the earlier and has therefore been adopted in this study.

1822 Paeonia flavescens is described in Deliciae Pragensis, by J. S. and C. B. Presi, as a paeony with yellowish petals, glabrous entire leaves and tomentose carpels, found in the hills of Gozzo del Pino in the Nebrodi Mountains in Sicily with P.cretica of Clusius quoted as a synonym. It may be a white or cream-flowered form of P.mascula.

1824 De Candolle in the Prodromus divides the genus into two sections : Sect. I Moutan, with woody stems with the disc more or less surrounding the carpels and Sect. II Paeon, herbaceous plants with the disc not conspicuous ; this section is again divided into those paeonies with glabrous [end page 132] leaves and those with hair underneath. All the species known up to that date are shortly described. P.lobata of Desfontaines is restricted to the Portuguese paeony ; P.Russi of Bivona is described as from Sicily. De Candolle has followed Anderson in the newly named species, P.decora, P.arietina, P.paradoxa and P.mollis.

1825 Sweet's British Flower Garden is illustrated with beautiful hand-coloured engravings after the style of the Botanical Magazine. Several garden forms of P.suffruticosa are well drawn and there is also a good illustration of P.Russi. It also has an interesting and good picture of P.peregrina under the name of P.lobata, and under the name of P.villosa is an illustration of the white form of P.mollis which was obtained from France under that name ; this white paeony has also been called P.sessilifiora. There is a beautiful plate of the double form of P.tenuifolia which is said to have been introduced from the Imperial Botanical Garden, St. Petersburg.

1826 In Flora Sicula, by C. B. Presi, two paeonies are mentioned : P.Russi, of which there is a good description, is said to come from the mountains of Occhiu and Pitrusu, by the sea near Palermo, and P.flavescens with pale yellow flowers from Cozzo del Pino in the Nebrodi Mountains at 5000 ft. ; with regard to the latter, Deliciae Pragensis (1822) and P.cretica of Clusius are quoted.

1828 Tausch in Flora Regensburg, 11, enumerates P.officinalis with many synonyms. P.promiscua is made into a separate species but from the description it is difficult to place ; the synonyms appear to belong to several different paeonies. P.festiva seems to be the double-flowered garden form of P.officinalis whose leaves are glabrous. P.lusitanica of Miller is described, but with the synonym of P.paradoxa of De Candolle in his Prodromus, which makes this name still more uncertain. In this work there is the first botanical description of Clusius's Cretan paeony under the name of P.cretica. Bauhin, who identified this plant correctly, is quoted and the habitat is given as "in montibus Sphakeoticis Cretae," that is, in the White Mountains in Crete. This appropriate name unfortunately has to be given up owing to Sabine describing a wrongly identified plant as P.cretica in the Botanical Register (1824) which is earlier than Tausch's description. The Cretan paeony had therefore to be re-named and was named P.Clusii in the Botanical Magazine (1940).

Tausch gives the first description of Sieber's P.Corsica from Monte Gagna ad Porto Vecchio in Corsica with the doubtful synonym P.paradoxa var. leiocarpa ? DC. This paeony is now considered a variety of P.Russi, and as it was named by Cosson P.corallina var. leiocarpa in 1849, it has now to be known, according to the International Rules, as P.Russi var. leiocarpa.

1828 Rochel describes in his Plantae Banaticus rariores a paeony of the Banat, a province between Hungary and Transylvania, as P.banatica, with a good line drawing of the plant. Huth (1891) made it a variety of P.peregrina, and Ascherson and Graebner (1923) a variety of P.officinalis. Rochel's name P.banatica has been retained.

1829 In the Botanical Register, 14, t. 1208, P.hybrida is figured and described. It is stated, "It is readily separated from P.anomala by its downy not smooth fruit." This plate is of P.anomala var. intermedia which was the plant Pallas may have meant when he said he found it wild in the Crimea, though before that, when he had seen it in the garden of St. Petersburg growing between P.tenuifolia and P.anomala, he thought it was a hybrid between these two species.

1830 Carl Anton Meyer in Ledebour's Flora Altaica, II, describes P.intermedia. This paeony is said to be like P.anomala but with tomentose carpels. The name " intermedia " has been adopted as the varietal name and it is now named P.anomala var. intermedia. [end page 133]

1831 In Host's Flora Austriaca, P.officinalis and P.rosea, which includes as synonyms P.banatica Rochel, and P.peregrina Pollini, are described, and also P.tenuifolia.

1832 During the editorship of Sir William Hooker, from 1827 to 1864, there were only two paeonies figured in the Botanical Magazine, and neither of them are of much interest. In 1832 in 59, peculiar plant is illustrated under the name of P.officinalis var. anemonifiora which came from Prince Salm-Dyck ; the plant looks most curious as the stamens seem to be converted into narrow acuminated spirally twisted petals.

1835 In 62, t. 3431 (1835), a paeony is described under the name of P.Russi. It is certainly not P.Russi; it cannot be said for certain what it really is.

1832 In Reichenbach's Flora Germanica, page 751, several paeonies are described. P.pubens of the Botanical Magazine, 48, t; 2264 (1821), is described with P.banatica of Rochel as a synonym.

1833 Bunge in his paper " Enumeratio Plantarum," published in Memoires Savantes Etrangeres, St. Petersburg, II, page 77, gives a description of plants of P.lactiflora with hairy carpels which he says were found in gardens ; he named this paeony P.albiflora var. trichocarpa.

1834 P.emodi is first described in Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains, by J. F. Royle, 1, 57, with the habitat given as Shalma Mountains, Kumaon, and the name is taken from Wallich's catalogue of plants of 1831.

1833 P.Brownii is first described in Flora Boreali-Americana, by Sir William Hooker, as P.Brownii, " Douglas in MSS.," with the habitat given as near the confines of perpetual snow on the subalpine range of Mount Hood, north-west America, 1826. The above work was published in parts, and although vol.1 is dated 1833, the first part, in which P.Brownii is described, was published in 1829.

1839 In this year P.Brownii was illustrated and described in the Botanical Register, 25, t. 30, by John Lindley, who also established the section Onaepia, characterised by the short, leathery petals, lobed fleshy disc and a dry, not succulent seed coat. The word " Onaepia " is merely an anagram of " paeonia."

1838 Torrey and Gray in Flora of North America describe P.Brownii and P.californica.

1834 Hortus Dyckensis is a descriptive catalogue of the plants grown in the gardens of Prince Salm-Dyck situated between Dusseldorf and Aix-la-Ghapelle on the Rhine, with charming engravings of the castle and gardens. A large number of paeonies are catalogued.

1837 Flora Sardoa, by Moris, 1, 64, describes P.mas pubescens, giving as synonym P.Russi Bivona, with the distribution in Sardinia and the adjacent islands.

1838 E. Boissier in Elenchus plantarum novarum minusque gives the first description of the Spanish Paeonia coriacea from Sierra Tejeda and Sierra Nevada.

1839 Again, Boissier in Voyage botanique dans le Midi de I'Espagne describes P.coriacea in vol. 2, with a plate in vol.1. He says that the P.corallina var. glabra of Cambessedes, Enumeratis Plantarum . . . Balearibus, and another plant collected by Sieber on Monte Cagna near Porto Vecchio, Corsica, ought perhaps to be referred to P.coriacea, but that the material seen was too incomplete for him to venture to cite them. The Cambessedes plant is, of course, P.Cambessedesii and Sieber's is P.Corsica Sieber, which has been named in this study P.Russi var. leiocarpa, both being quite distinct from P.coriacea. Boissier also describes a paeony from Portugal and Spain as "P.lobata Desf. Cat. H. Par.," but this is re-named in his appendix (1845) as P.Broteri, quoting Boissier and Reuter, 1842. Boissier's Voyage botanique was published in parts and appeared in 1845. [end page 134]

1842 Boissier and Reuter published the description of P.Broteri in Diagnoses Plantarum Novarum Hispanicarum with the locations in the Sierra de Guadarrama, Sierra de Gredos and Sierra de Toledo and also in Portugal, and the variety ovatifolia " foliola ovata minus acuminata " from the hills of Grenada.

1846 In the Botanical Register, 32, t. 9 (1846), Lindley first described P.Wittmanniana, but he described it as having tomentose carpels, although the plate appears to have glabrous carpels. The full history of this plant is given under the description of P.Wittmanniana.

1848 Steven described Paeonia Wittmanniana with glabrous carpels in Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou, 21, iii, 275, from Mt. Cartalinia in the province of Achalziche. This paeony is now named P.Wittmanniana var. nudicarpa as the original description of Lindley's was of the paeony with tomentose carpels.

In the Botanical Magazine, 108, t. 6645 (1882), Sir Joseph Hooker describes P.Wittmanniana as having glabrous carpels, thereby perpetuating Steven's description and not taking note of Lindley's previous description of P.Wittmanniana which was of a plant with tomentose carpels, although in the text the information about the discovery of this paeony is given in practically the same words as in the Botanical Register. The text further mentions that this paeony was named after Mr. Wittmann, a traveller in the Taurian Caucasus who was afterwards gardener at Odessa, and further discusses whether P.Wittmanniana is a native of north Persia, which is given by Boissier as Asterabad on the authority of Bunge. Sir Joseph Hooker continues, " But Bunge's Asterabad plant so named by himself and which he communicated to the Hookerian Herbarium cannot be this species, having very woolly carpels. The true plant is, however, in the same Herbarium collected in the Caucasus by Frick." Bunge's specimen in the Kew Herbarium is doubtful and Sir Joseph Hooker has written " not Bunge " on the label, so this specimen must be disregarded.

1850 In Cosson's Notes sur quelques plantes nouvelles critiques, in an enumeration of plants, he describes the paeony from Gagna in the hills of Corsica as P.corallina var. leiocarpa and quotes Cambessedes ; he says this species differs from the corallina type by the glabrous carpels and is close to P.coriacea but differs from it by the leaves not being glabrous beneath. This is no doubt the Monte Cagna species which in this study is considered a variety of P.Russi and has been named P.Russi var. leiocarpa, adopting the varietal name of Cosson as the first varietal name given to this paeony.

1859 The first description of P.obovata from the Amur district of eastern Siberia was given by C. J. Maximowicz in his book Primitiae Florae Amurensis and the plant described had rose-purple flowers.

1860 In Ruprecht's Flora Caucasi there are full histories of P.triternata, P.Wittmanniana and P.hybrida of Pallas. He says he " considers P.hybrida of Pallas a garden hybrid but there is no doubt a broader leaved variety of P.tenuifolia " ; he further gives the history of how the name of P.Biebersteiniana arose, which was the name given to the form with broader segments; this plant is probably P.anomala var. intermedia.

1868 The earliest figure of P.emodi is in the Botanical Magazine, 44, t. 5719. It first flowered in the Glasnevin Garden in Dublin and the text says that this paeony only differs from P.albifiora by the single carpel. [end page 135]

1872 The variety of P.emodi with glabrous carpels is described in Hooker's Flora of British India, 1, 30, as P.emodi var. glabrata, Hook, f. and Thomson.

1883 M. Willkomm in his fine book, Illustrationes Florae Hispaniae insularumque Balearium, describes and illustrates the two paeonies, P.Cambessedesii and P.Broteri, which had already been described by Boissier in 1842. Willkom describes P.Cambessedesii for the first time as a species, showing how it differs from other paeonies, especially P.corallina var. leiocarpa. He describes the habitat of this paeony as the Balearic Islands but goes on in the text to say that it appears not to be exclusively in those islands as the plant named P.Corsica Sieber (after which there is an exclamation mark), found in Corsica, appears to be an " angustifolia " form of the Balearic paeony. This has proved not to be the case as among other differences P.Russi var. leiocarpa from Corsica is a tetraploid and P.Cambessedesii has proved to be a diploid. The illustrations are not very good.

1884 J. G. Baker, of Kew, wrote a useful short monograph on Paeonies in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 21. He divides the genus into two subgenera, Moutan and Paeonia proper, the one shrubby with the disc enveloping the base of the carpels, the other herbaceous with the disc not produced to envelop the base of the carpels. The second subgenus, Paeonia proper, is divided into three groups :

1. follicles glabrous.

2. follicles tomentose erect or slightly spreading.

3. follicles tomentose spreading stellately when mature.

The different species known up to that date are described. Under P.Wittmanniana there is a note that Bunge's specimen from Asterabad has tomentose carpels. P.oreogeton is given as a synonym of P.obovata. P.humilis and P.microcarpa are both described but the latter is said to be a near ally of P.humilis. Two forms of P.anomala are noted—one with glabrous carpels and one with tomentose carpels. P.peregrina is still used to denote the paeony from southern France. Baker says, "it is not distinct from P.officinalis as a species in any broad sense," and of P.paradoxa he remarks, " not more than a variety of P.peregrina" The name P.decora of Anderson is used for Clusius's P.byzantina. P.Russi, P.triternata and P.coriacea are given specific rank and are not considered varieties or subspecies of P.corallina.

1886 The French botanist, A. Franchet, described the botanical collections made by the Abbe Delavay in Yunnan in the Bulletin de la Societe Botanique de France, 33, 382, including the earliest descriptions of the two shrubby Chinese paeonies, P.Delavayi and P.lutea. The Abbe's first collections arrived in Paris in 1883. P.lutea was figured in volume 11 of Le Jardin in 1897, and again in the Botanical Magazine, 127, t. 7788 (1901).

1887 In Cosson's Compendium Florae Atlanticae, which is a flora of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the paeony of Algiers, with the glabrous carpels but the underside of the leaf pubescent, is described as P.corallina var. atlantica from specimens collected by Kralik.

1889 But in the Bulletin de la Societe Botanique de France, 36, 18, this same paeony from Algiers is described as P.algeriensis by A. Chabert, and in the same volume, page 62, there is an article by Trabut on the plants found in the mountains of Algiers and among the names of the plants is P.atlantica Kralik ; this species is not described and so the name is invalid.

1890 In the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 12, 428, there is A new classification of the genus Paeonia by R.Irwin Lynch. Lynch divides the genus into three subgenera: Moutan, characterised [end page 136] by its shrubby habit and by the disc enclosing the carpels ; Onaepia, herbaceous, with the petals short and leathery scarcely exceeding the sepals ; and Paeon, herbaceous with petals, not leathery, much exceeding the sepals. The species of Paeon are divided into five groups, mainly by the character of the leaves, though P.albiflora and P.emodi are grouped together by their having more than one flower on a stem. By the character of the leaves, the species with numerous narrow divisions are placed in one group, and those with entire leaves into another group.

The next two groups are divided firstly by the leaves being deep green, and secondly by the leaves being glaucous or pale green above. In the first group there is only P.officinalis Retz., quoting Botanical Magazine, t. 1784 (1815), and a variety of it named lobata (P.lobata Desf.) as figured in Sweets' Flower Garden, t. 70 (1825) ; this variety is described and said to be easily recognised by its unique brilliant salmon-coloured flower, native of Portugal according to De Candolle's Systema ; this is no doubt the plant known in gardens as P.lobata or P. "Sunbeam", but which is in fact the form of P.peregrina from Smyrna and Serbia. In the second group there are two divisions, (1) flowers distinctly stalked, those with glabrous carpels and those with hairy carpels, and (2) dwarf plant with flowers subsessile. Under (1), with glabrous carpels, Lynch includes P.humilis from the south of France and P.microcarpa from Spain, though he says there is little difference between them ; and those species with hairy carpels are again separated by the leaf, usually three-lobed with the middle lobe trifid, or by the leaf with the middle lobe rarely bifid never trifid ; under (1), with hairy carpels, P.decora, P.peregrina and P.paradoxa are enumerated, but Lynch does not show what difference there is between P.decora and P.peregrina. Lynch is responsible for the naming of P.Bakeri, which is probably a garden form from the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, now lost there but still found in gardens ; there does not appear to be any dried specimen of Lynch's in existence. P.Barrii is a new name given by Lynch to the paeony depicted in the Botanical Magazine, t. 3431 (1835), under the name of P.Russi, which is certainly not P.Russi.

1891 E. Huth published a " Monograph of the Genus Paeonia " in Engler's Botanische Jahrbücher in 1891. Huth says in the introduction that since Anderson's monograph (1817) was written, the knowledge of the distribution of the wild species had increased greatly ; he thought Anderson had laid too much stress on forms created by the horticulturists' skill and neglected investigations of the original homes of the wild species ; further, Huth did not think that the three characters emphasized by Anderson—pubescence of the leaves and carpels and the direction of the latter—were of much value. Huth was the first to draw attention to the hairs on the upper side of the leaves of P.anomala and P.emodi and the papillae on the leaves of .P.lactiflora. The Officinalis group are brought together under the name of P.peregrina Miller; and under P.corallina are included P.fiavescens, P.triternata, P.Broteri and P.Russi owing, as he says, to the inconstancy of their different characters. Huth adopted the name of P.peregrina var. villosa for De Candolle's P.paradoxa, the Montpellier plant.

1893 Flore de France, by Rouy and Foucaud, contains a list of plants to be found in France, Corsica and Alsace-Lorraine. In vol. i, 143, the paeony species are divided into subspecies of P.corallina and P.peregrina ; under the name of " peregrina " as subspecies the different paeonies of the south of France and northern Spain are described, some with new names such as P.leiocarpa and P.angustata. This work merely adds to the confusion of the nomenclature of these paeonies.

1897 A. A. Lomakin has an important article in the Transactions of the Botanical Garden Tifiis(1897). The following is a translation of the first part of the paper :— [end page 137] " At the present time there exists in the Botanic Garden of Tiflis an extensive collection of yellow paeonies which have been forwarded to the Garden from various parts in the Caucasus. Observations on these plants in a living condition enable us to state that they cannot be referred as a whole to Paeonia Wittmanniana Stev., the only yellow-flowered species of paeonia so far known to exist in the Caucasus.

" We cannot agree with N. M. Alboff (Materials for the flora of Colchida in Trans. Bot. Gard. Tiflis, part 1, suppl.), who refers the above-mentioned paeonies to the species P.corallina Retz.; they differ totally in all details : in the shape, colouring and pubescence of the leaves, in the shape of the flowers, in the position and pubescence of the fruits. It is sufficient to mention that Baillon considers it necessary to separate P.Wittmanniana as a distinct section (Baillon, Monographie des Renonculacees, page 65).

" In the List of Plants in Talysch (Trans. Bot. Gard. Tiflis, part i) we included P.Wittmanniana Stev. var. tomentosa, which differs essentially from the type form only in the felting of the fruits and their retroflexion.* (" In all probability the form collected by us in Talysch is identical with P.Wittmanniana from Persia (Ghilyan), mentioned by Buhse (Verzeichniss in Transcauc. und Persien gesamml. Pflanzen, P.8)."Besides this form there exist in the Garden : a typical P.Wittmanniana from the neighbourhood of Atzkur, where this species was first found ; paeonies from the village Lagodekhi sent in by L. F. Mlokosewitch, and from Adjaria, sent in by N. M. Alboff. We consider the two last mentioned as two new species, easily distinguishable from P.Wittmanniana Stev. The last one is stated by Alboff to be P.corallina var. Wittmanniana forma macrophylla."

1898 The first description of the Japanese form of P.obovata is recorded in the Botanical Magazine, Tokyo, 12, 302, and in English there appears the new name—P.obovata var. japonica Makino, saying it is " closely allied to the typical form but the leaves entirely glabrous and the petals always white. It is not uncommon in mountainous districts of Japan throughout and the typical one also appears in this country."

1899 Carl Fritsch in Verhandlungen der Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft (Vienna), 44, pages 240-242, has an interesting article on P.peregrina and other paeonies. He is the first botanist to argue that P.peregrina of Miller is the same plant as P.decora of Anderson, P.lobata of DC. and P.romanica of Brandza in Prodronus Florei Romane (1879). The full history of this confusion is given on page 127. He suggests the name of P.femina Desfontaines (1804) should be given to P.officinalis v. femina of Linnaeus as it had been wrongly known as P.peregrina and the name P.corallina to P.officinalis p mascula. He goes on to say that it is not possible to clear up what paeony P.lusitanica Miller refers to and remarks that Huth in his monograph (1891) entirely ignored it.

1899 Le Grand described in Bulletin de I'Association francaise de Botanique, No. 15, page 62, under the name of P.Russi var. Reverchoni, a form of P.Russi with glabrous carpels and with pubescence under the leaf, found in Serra di Scopamene, Corsica. The French text is quoted on page 65, where this species is described. The Bulletin quoted above is a very uncommon book and the only copy that could be found was at Geneva.