Peony

Where it grows

Herbaceous peonies are native to China, Mongolia, and Siberia; the Chinese peony, P. lactiflora, has been cultivated in China for over fifteen hundred years and has hundreds of named cultivars. Tree peonies (P. suffruticosa) are woody-stemmed garden shrubs descended from Chinese mountain species and were sometimes called “the king of flowers” in imperial China.

How to recognise it

Herbaceous peonies emerge each spring as deep red shoots from underground crowns, growing to about eighty centimetres with deeply divided dark green leaves and one to three large flowers per stem. Tree peonies are deciduous woody shrubs that retain their stems through winter. Flowers can be single, semi-double, anemone, bomb, or full double, sometimes packed with hundreds of petals.

Garden & cultural uses

Herbaceous peonies are extraordinarily long-lived — a clump can flower in the same spot for fifty years or more — but resent transplanting. Itoh hybrids cross the herbaceous and tree types, producing yellow and coral blooms unavailable in pure herbaceous strains. The dried root of P. lactiflora is one of the most-prescribed traditional Chinese medicinal herbs.

In symbolism

The peony is the unofficial national flower of China, where it symbolises wealth and honour, and it appears endlessly in Tang and Ming dynasty painting.