Flowers bloom in early spring (late April-May in the St.

Yellow center stamens provide excellent contrast. Upward facing, mildly fragrant, semi-double flowers are purplish-red with prominent white striping. ‘Shima-Nishiki' is a multi-stemmed, deciduous, woody shrub that typically grows to 3-4' tall and as wide. Specific epithet means sub-shrub or somewhat shrubby. Genus name comes from the Greek name for Paeon, physician of the gods and reputed discoverer of the medicinal properties of plants in this genus. Medium green foliage is deeply divided into oval to lance-shaped leaflets and remains attractive throughout the growing season. Cultivar flower forms range from single to semi-double to double. Many cultivars of this species have been developed, with a wide range of petal colors including red, pink, purple, white and yellow. The true species features large flowers (6-8' across) with pink to white petals, each petal having a purple basal patch. 84-86.Paeonia suffruticosa, commonly called tree peony, is a deciduous, woody shrub that typically grows 3-5' tall with a 4' spread. Taxonomy and phytogeography.” Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens, 2010, pp. The protologue stated that it had been preserved in CAF but the keeper of the herbarium could not ﬁnd it, and was told by HONG Tao that no holotype specimen had been preserved. We here designate a neotype for Paeonia ostii, since the original material cited in the protologue (Hong & Zhang, 1992) was not preserved. In 1998, however, we found it in Western Henan in Lushi County (D. We did find the species cultivated in Secaogou Village, but not in the wild. We visited Songxian, Mt Yangshan, in Henan Province twice, in 19, and searched extensively for P. HONG Tao and his co-workers (Hong et al., 1992) stated that the shrub from which the type was collected was introduced from “Songxian, Yangshan, 1,200 m, in thickets on slopes”. Paeonia ostii is cultivated on a large scale in Tongling, Anhui Province, and to a lesser extent in other provinces such as Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi and Sichuan. They resemble each other very closely, and thus the plant commonly cultivated for mudanpi should be identified as P. ostii to plants commonly cultivated for mudanpi (a famous Chinese traditional medicine) in Tongling, Anhui Province, the locality in which mudanpi is famously cultivated. Paeonia ostii is considered a distinct species, but had been confused with P. The distinctive characters of Paeonia ostii are its ternate- pinnate lower leaves, with the leaflets 11-15 in number and ovate, ovate- lanceolate, mostly entire flowers single and pure white, rarely pale pink filaments red-purple disk dark purple and stigmas red. This species is widely but sporadically cultivated in China as a traditional medicine.

Native in Anhui (Chaohu) and W Henan (Lushi County and Xixia County) cultivated in Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and other provinces. In deciduous broad-leaved forests and thickets on slopes at an altitude of 300-1 ,600 m. Seeds brown-black, oblong-spherical or spherical, 8-9 mm long, 7-8 mm in diameter.

Follicles oblong, densely brown-yellow tomentose. Flowers solitary, terminal, single involucrate bracts 3-6 in number, green, leaf-like sepals 4-6 in number, green-yellow, broad- elliptic or ovate- orbicular, 1.5-3.1 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm wide, shortly caudate or acute at the apex petals usually 11-14 in number, white, rarely pinkish, obovate, 5.5-8 cm long, 4-6 cm wide, entire or incised at the apex filaments purple-red anthers yellow disk entirely enveloping carpels at anthesis, purple-red, leathery, dentate or lobed at the apex carpels 5, densely tomentose stigmas sessile, red. Lower leaves ternate- pinnate, with 11-15 leaflets leaflets lanceolate to ovate- lanceolate, mostly entire, terminal leaflets often 2-3-lobed, very occasionally 1-2 lateral leaflets also 2-lobed, rounded at the base, acute to acuminate at the apex, 5-13 cm long, 2.5-6 cm wide, glabrous on both surfaces but sometimes pubescent at the base or the lower part of major veins above.

Paeonia suffruticosa purple