Introduction

Characteristics
of I-Hybrids

The three sections
of the peony family

Some fundamental thoughts on
the crossbreeding of I-Hybrids

The herbaceous
peony cultivars

Cultivars by
Toichi Itoh

Looking at the forms of the
cultivation of tree peonies

Cultivars by
Don Hollingsworth

Some details of the history
of cultivation of the I-Hybrids

Cultivars by
Roger Anderson

Peony Database

From Japan and USA some completely new and unusual peony cultivars have arrived in Europe. Unfortunately they are not yet widely familiar with us, since there are limits to their propagation and they are, moreover, still rather expensive. These new cultivars originate all in crossing by herbaceous peonies with tree peonies.

Itoh-Hybrids or Intersectionals
In the USA it was not possible to agree on a common name for this new group. Officially all crosses between herbaceous and tree peonies are called «Itoh-Hybrids» by the American Peony Society, but some breeders do not accept this, because one might get the idea that all the peonies of this group were achieved by the Japanese breeder Itoh. They sell their breeding products on the market as «Intersectionals». To simplify matters these peonies will be called «I-Hybrids» in the following article.

The breeding of I-Hybrids just began
The difficult and time consuming breeding of these peonies is still in its prime - as a rule it takes 5 to 6 years from pollination to the first flowering. The first results that have been achieved in the last few years, some of which are described in this article, are so very promising that the near future is sure to present us with veritable garden treasures.

The purpose of this little article to familiarize garden and peony lovers in the whole world with these new cultivars. In two or three years, when the plants of the new peony collection in the «Hochschule Wädenswil» on the lake of Zurich in Switzerland have settled down, several of the I-Hybrids that are described in this article can be visited there.

In order to understand these new peony cultivars it is necessary to throw a glance at the family of the peonies, the Paeoniaceae. Moreover, a short retrospect on the history of peony cultivation will be useful.

Literature

Michel Rivière

Le Monde fabuleux des Pivoines, Floraprint France, Massy, 1992

F.C. Stern

A Study of the Genus Paeonia, The Royal Horticultural Society, London, 1946

John L. Fiala

Chromosome Abnormalities in Paeonia Lutea Hybrid 'Alice Harding' and others [(Bulletin der American Peony Society, Nr. 191, Dezember 1968)] (Bulletin of the American Peony Society, No. 191, December 1968)

Reinhilde Frank

Päonien, Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttagart, 1989

Copyright:
Walter Good
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