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Paeonia brownii
Also called Western Peony
Brown's peony is a small, summer-dormant perennial from the dry mountains of the western United States, grown from a fleshy root. It is rarely cultivated because it is hard to grow, and its key requirement is sharp drainage with no summer water.
Paeonia brownii is a low to medium height, herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Paeoniaceae. It has compound, steely-gray, somewhat fleshy leaves and small drooping maroon flowers. Its vernacular name is Brown's peony, native peony or western peony. It is native to the western United States and usually grows at altitude, often as undergrowth in part-shade. The fleshy roots store food to carry the plant through the dry summers and produce new leaves and flowers the following spring.
Brown's peony is rarely cultivated because it has limited ornamental value due to its few and small flowers and the difficulty to grow it. It is highly intolerant of water during its summer dormancy. It is advised to place this plant in an area of the garden with superb drainage and sheltered from summer rains. Paeonia brownii tolerates sand.
Brown's peony grows in open dry pine forests such as stands of ponderosa pine, in sagebrush, in mountain brush, and in aspen stands at elevations of 200–3,000 m (660–9,840 ft), where winters are long and cold, with little to no snow cover and the growing season is short. It occurs in northern California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. It is not native to Canada.
Native Americans made the roots into a tea to treat lung illnesses.
Algerian Peony · Anomalous Peony · Paeonia arietina · Paeonia broteri · California peony · Paeonia cambessedesii · Clusius' Peony · Paeonia coriacea · Paeonia corsica · Paeonia daurica subsp. macrophylla · Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii · Crimean Peony
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Paeonia brownii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
