By Harvey Buchite

While most gardeners see the full-blown doubles of the Chinese Peony as the real peony I find the species with their simple beauty as worthy as any of the treasured varieties of peonies that I grow.

I would be willing to guess that if you were offered a piece of the fern leaf peony, P. tenuifolia or the yellow peony, P. mlokosewitschi you'd make room in your garden for them.

My interest for growing peony species began when I first saw the most glowing red goblets of P. peregrina against a background of deep green, glossy leaves at the botanical garden in Vienna, Austria. Farther down the path I saw the yellow tree peony P. lutea, with its fragrant yellow flowers half hidden by the large leaves. Still farther were the white-cupped flowers of P. clusii.

This lead to ordering wild species peony seed through international seed exchanges, and even talking to the gardeners of the botanical garden to talk to the seed curator for a small sample of seeds on another visit. She generously shared a half dozen seed of P. mascula from a plant found growing natively in Austria. One seed germinated and is now growing in our garden.

My collection of species peonies has grown to 150 individual seed grown plants representing 15 different species or sub-species with more seeds prepared for germination next year from China, Mongolia, and the Caucasus region including a number of tree peonies.

I've studied any and all the botanical and gardening information I could collect on these species for this series. I hope you enjoy the information and put it to use by trying a few of these beautiful peonies in your garden.

Background;

Peonies are found occurring wild only in the northern hemisphere. There are some 61 wild occurring species including, subspecies and varieties according to some of the most current literature with possibly more as information from China and the Caucasus region comes to light.

Two species are found in the western United States, P. brownii and P. californica with P. brownii having the most northerly distribution and P. californica being restricted to southern California. Their closest related peony species are speculated to be the shrubby peonies found in China as they share a number of similar floral characteristics.

Peonies have been used for medicine for over two thousand years. It has been used for flavoring foods and as a cooked vegetable. The flowers of some species, namely P. caucasica, have been used to dye cloth a red color.

While many species peonies are easy to grow the biggest difficulty appears being able to find them offered for sale. Like other peonies they have to be propagated or in some cases raised from seed. It takes as many as 5-10 years to raise a flowering size plant from seed. Which is a very long time for commercial nurseries to invest in a single plant, consequently they are rarely available commercially.

Paeonia anomala the first peony to be explored in our series is well adapted to growing in Minnesota. I have a number of different small plants grown from seed whose origins include, Kercela Altai, Russia, Mongolia and the Gobi Altai. (Altai means mountains). I also grow a plant of garden origin that has been grown for over fifty years in this area.

One can find another plant similar to P. anomala called P Smouthi. But, P. anomala has one flower per stem while P. Smouthi has two side buds below the main bud.

P. anomala and its one variety called; P. anomala var. intermedia have a very wide distribution geographically. It is found in NW Russian Kola peninsula, south to central Asia, Tien Shan, Pamir-Alai, and east to the Altai, south to the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, and N. China.

Its native habitat is coniferous woods, among shrubs on rocky hillsides, and dry steppe grasslands, mostly on deep well drained sandy soils.

It is distinctive with fine cut foliage, not as narrow as the fern leaf peony but attractive nonetheless. Autumn leaf color is orange brown.

Root color is rarely mentioned in literature about plants but I have noted that the roots can be nearly white to a light tan color when first dug. Mongol Tartars do cook the roots of this species for food.

The three-inch flowers are magenta red to brilliant red with a bright gold center of stamens. It blooms very early on 20" stems. This plant has been used to make a very few hybrid peonies one of them being called Echo. Unlike some species I've grown it has never developed growing buds from a root section without an eye.

It is the start of the early spring garden blooming with tulips and daffodils. Only single flowered forms are known to exist. I have never seen this species injured by late spring frosts.

Well-drained sandy soils in full sun seem to suite it well and with its wide range it is hardy to the far north. It would look good in a large-scale rock garden, perhaps paired with some of the ornamental grasses that prefer the same garden site in full sun and well-drained soils.

Rarely found in cultivation it has key features that I find attractive; compact growth habit and fine cut foliage, bright red flowers very early in the peony season, and great low temperature tolerance both for the plant and flowers.