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

In ancient China the endemic wild species of tree peonies were experimented on by cultivators in various regions of the huge empire. According to Ou-Yang-Hsiu (1007 - 1072), an imperial official of the Sung period, who rose to be prime minister and who described the cultivars then known in Luoyang in his «Report of the tree peonies of Luoyang», new garden varieties were created by collecting and sowing the seeds of different plants flowering in the same garden, then selecting the most beautiful specimens of the seedlings. Crossing was acutally not intended. Obviously only the related species around of Paeonia suffruticosa (P. suffruticosa var. spontanea, P. suffriicosa var. papaveracea, P. ostii, P. szechuanica etc.) common in China, were used. Strangely enough Paeonia delavayi, Paeonia lutea and Paeonia potaninii were not, as I mentioned above, integrated into Chinese horticulture, though two of the species have yellow flowers, a colour that is highly popular in China. Probably the flowers of these wild species were too small for the ancient Chinese horticulturists to range them among the Moutan or Moudan (the Chinese name for tree peony).

This step was taken only in Europe (VICTOR LEMOINE) and later in America (PROF. SAUNDERS and NASSOS DAPHNIS) where the intense yellow and red shades of these species were successfully crossed with the suffruticosa varieties.

Paeonia suffruticosa 'Renkaku'

Paeonia yananensis
Foto taken in free nature in China

Foto: W. Good

Foto: Prof. Hong Tao

Paeonia delavayi

Foto: W. Good

Paeonia lutea var. ludlowii

Foto: Dr. Zwygart

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
Wettsteinstrasse 6
CH-8332 Russikon
Switzerland, 2000

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