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Paeonia daurica
Paeonia daurica is a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the peony family. It has slender carrot-shaped roots, leaves mostly consisting of nine leaflets, with one flower per stem. The flower is subtended by none to two leafy bracts, and has two or three sepals, five to eight petals, and many stamens. The subspecies vary in the colour of the petals (white, light yellow, pink, red), the size and shape of the leaflets, and the hairiness of the leaflets and the carpels. Paeonia daurica can be found from the Balkans to Iran, and the Crimea to Lebanon, with the centre of its distribution in the Caucasus. It is also cultivated as an ornamental.
Several subspecies of P. daurica are on offer as seed or plants (daurica, coriifolia, tomentosa, macrophylla, mlokosewitschii and wittmanniana) and are collected by specialist gardeners. These are said to be hardy in western Europe and suitable for normal garden conditions, the lowland taxa with preference for more or less shady circumstances.
Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. As this subspecies' name is somewhat difficult to pronounce in English, it is often affectionately referred to as 'Molly-the-Witch'.
Paeonia daurica can be found scattered in the Balkans (Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, northern Greece), the Crimea, the Caucasus (Dagestan and Krasnodar Krai in Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan), Kaçkar Mountains (Turkey), the Alborz Mountains (northern Iran), Talysh Mountains (west of Guilan province, South of Caspian sea), and in Lebanon. The typical P. daurica subsp. daurica is widespread, but is not sympatric with the other subspecies, and does not occur in the Velebit, Caucasus and Alborz mountains. P. daurica subsp. coriifolia occurs at elevations below 1000 m in the west and north-west of the Caucasus and it is found in deciduous forests dominated by oak, beech, elm, maple and ash or in mixed forests of fir, oak and beech, growing on a wide range of limestone, sandstone and volcanic rocks. P. daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii is only known from eastern Georgia, north-western Azerbaijan and adjacent Russia, where it grows in deciduous oak, beech, elm, maple and chestnut forests. P. daurica subsp.
Algerian Peony · Anomalous Peony · Paeonia arietina · Paeonia broteri · Brown's peony · California peony · Paeonia cambessedesii · Clusius' Peony · Paeonia coriacea · Paeonia corsica · Paeonia daurica subsp. macrophylla · Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Paeonia daurica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
