Thursday, June 28, 2007

Paeonia lactiflora

The grand precursor of the garden peony is still growing in the wilds of Mongolia and Northern China, and their seeds are collected by a few dedicated botanists from time to time. I obtained about 10 seedlings from collections made by J Halda in the Altai mountains; these 2 are the first to bloom this year. They're in a sunnier bed than the datum display bed. I'm not sure why hybridizers insist on trying to improve on nature... Nice strong stems, heady fragrance, clean simple lines-- a fine way to start the end of peony season, these are my last species to flower.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

why the golf balls?? :-D (fore!)

Leo said...

The golfballs provide aproximate scale in 3 dimensions, and unlike coins most of the world knows how big a golfball is. As an unintended side-benefit, the appearance of the golfball will show if the photo is over- or underexposed in which case you can mentally adjust for how that might affect the colour of the flower, or if the colour has been tampered with (which I don't do but some folks do)
-Leo