Paeonia 2013

[Matt]

Paeonia corsica in flower today in my garden (together with Tulipa clusiana).
It is the first flower of a 5 years old plant from seeds collected on Mt. Cagna in Corsica.

Matt

[ian mcenery]

Interesting that you should post that image today Janis. At yesterday's South West AGS Show a chap came into the member's plant sale with a few pots in a box that he asked to be put on the sales table in case anyone was interested in them for free. Amongst them were two Paeonia seedlings labelled as follows:-

"Paeonia Sp. Nova Iran, Talysh, 2000m, JJA 19199" I put £5 in the till and brought one pot home with me. With the pots was a coloured photograph of a yellowish Paeony which one chap on the plant stall said might be Molly the Witch!

Last night I had a look through the Jim Archibald papers on the SRGC Main Site and couldn't find any reference to Talysh, Iran and I also looked quickly through the JJA Seed Lists and could not find a reference to "19199" and looked to Maggi to see if she might be able to point me in the right direction. Maggi came up with the following:-

747.961 : #PAEONIA TOMENTOSA Azerbaijan. (A very little-known species. Plants from seed collected in the Iranian Talysh range, which runs from SE Azerbaijan on into Iran, in the 1960's (as P. wittmanniana) were compact with white flowers & most distinct. We saw yellow-flowered ones in another Iranian Talysh locality recently. This seed is from up towards Armenia, in the main body of the Caucasus, in NE Azerbaijan. Our own seedlings are as yet unflowered.)

For the sake of the record I'll try to post an image of my plant tomorrow although it looks no different to the images Janis has posted.

Did you collect the seed from which your plants were grown Janis?

David you lucky chap.  I got a few seeds from this list JJA . 19199 Paeonia sp nova and have just potted up the resulting seedlings. Jim made it sound so nice that I couldn't resist 

[Tim Ingram]

Matt - thank you so much for that information about the Iranian peonies and David Millward's fascinating article. All a lot clearer now! Some wonderful pictures in nature.

[Leena]

Matt - thank you so much for that information about the Iranian peonies and David Millward's fascinating article. All a lot clearer now! Some wonderful pictures in nature.

I agree, thank you!
The foliage of P.tomentosa looks interesting compared to "normal" P.wittmanniana.

[David Nicholson]

Thanks to Maggi, Matt and Tim for getting to the bottom of this one, what a lovely place to be this Forum is.

Ian, I now know where to come if I loose mine

[Matt]

Paeonia coriacea in flower today in my garden (thx dad for the pics).
It is the first flower of a 6 years old plant from seeds collected on the Atlas Mountains in Morocco by Christine Skelmersdale.

Matt

[ArnoldT]

Paeonia tenuifolia subsp. lithophila

[ArnoldT]

Paeonia emodi

[Tim Ingram]

Arnold has beaten me to it - Paeonia tenuifolia is probably my favourite of all species because of its unique foliage, and is extraordinary when it first comes through the ground. This is a particularly compact form in our garden (I think originating from seed from Jelitto?). It would be interesting to compare this with other forms when it is fully developed - it never sets seed as well as other peonies, but we did get a few seed last year and it would be good to get a small colony of plants going.

[Roma]

Are you sure they're not sea anemones, Tim?

[Matt]

Paeonia tenuifolia subsp. lithophila

Hi Arnold

Is Paeonia tenuifolia subsp. lithophila the one that grows taller and sturdier than the "normal" species?

Where did you get your P. emodi from? Here in Europe it seems very difficult to get the true species...many nurseries sell here the Early-Late Windflower hybrids as P. emodi. I am still looking for the true species!
The huge plant at Kew in the Order Beds labelled as P. emodi is in fact one of the Windflower (it comes from Stern's garden at Highdown)...and I suspect that the big plant in Cambridge BG is also from Highdown (Gail...have you got pics of it?).
The plants at Kew in the south "Asia" end of the Rock Garden should be the true species and so should be the plant in Berlin-Dahlem BG (shown in the attached pic).
The main feature of true P. emodi is the single carpel.

M.

[Maggi Young]

The huge plant at Kew in the Order Beds labelled as P. emodi is in fact one of the Windflower (it comes from Stern's garden at Highdown)...and I suspect that the big plant in Cambridge BG is also from Highdown (Gail...have you got pics of it?).
M.

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=6964.msg195278#msg195278

[Matt]

Great Maggi..thx a lot!

The leaves of the Cambridge plant seem OK...may be Gail has got a better detail of the flowers.

M.

[ArnoldT]

Matt:

The Paeonia tenuifolis subsp. lithofilia came from the now closed Seneca Hills Perennial Nursery located in New York State.  It was run by Ellen Hornig.

I've had it in the ground  for at leave five years and this is the first flower.

[Leena]

The main feature of true P. emodi is the single carpel.

That is good to know.
Berlin P.emody is a beautiful plant!

I have P.emodi which I hope will flower for the first time this year (only yesterday the snow melted from that bed), they were sown 2007 from seeds I bought from Burkhardt from Germany, but I think they were seeds from his garden (not wild collected), so there is always a possibility of them not coming true.
I have also 'Early Windflower', planted last autumn (so I don't know if it will flower yet this year) to compare.