H. Takeda

NEW OR NOTEWORTHY PLANTS. PAEONIA JAPONICA


Gardeners ' Chronicle, 1910 vol. 48 p. 366 fig. 153

NEW OR NOTEWORTHY PLANTS.

PAEONIA JAPONICA,* Miyabe et Takeda.

This Peony has been known to Japanese botanists from the remotest time, but as P. obovata Maxim, v. also grows in mountainous districts throughout Japan, P. japonica has been confounded with it or believed to be a merely white-flowered variety, for the habit is very similar. P. japonica is, however, distinguished from Maximowicz's plant mainly by its flowers, which open less widely and have more concave petals and short stigmas, whilst the leaves are quite glabrous. Therefore, the plant is considered to be a proper species, and its name has been put back to P. japonica.

The plant has a stem 2 feet high, with obtuse scales at the base, usually bifoliate. The leaflets are ovate, paler and glabrous beneath, petiolulate. The flower is white, 5 to 6 cm. across, not widely expanded. There are usually three sepals, ovate, without leafy appendage, deeply concave, green and glabrous. There are five petals, obovate-cuneate or orbiculate-obovate, with undulated margins. The numerous stamens are about 1 cm. long. The three carpels are slender, glabrous and green, and the stigmas short and sessile.

The species is widely distributed in Japan as far north as the island of Yezo, but it has not been recorded from neighbouring countries, while P. obovata grows in several places of Northern Asia. In Japan it is known under the name of „Yama-shakuyaku“, i.e., the wild Paeony, and the plants flower in April and May. H. Takeda.

*Paeonia japonica (Makino), Miyabe et Takeda.

Syn. Paeonia obovata [beta] japonica Makino in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XVI (1902), p. 59.

Paeonia Wittmanniana Finet et Gagn. Contr. Fl. Asie Orient, I. p. 222, pro parte, non Lindl.

Paeonia albiflora Miq. Prol. Fl. japon. p. 197, pro parte. Franch. et Sav. Enum. Pl. Japon. i, p. 14, pro parte, non Pall.

Statura P. obovatae Maxim. valde similis, sed floribus non apertis, albis, petalis obovato-cuneatis vel orbiculato-obovatis, apicem versus undulatis, valde concavis, sub anthesi conniventibus, staminibus brevioribus, stigmatibus brevissimis nec elongans nec convoluto-retortis distinguitur. H. Takeda.