About P. oreogeton and the other Far Eastern yellow herbaceous peonies

Dr. Carsten Burkhardt, 12. July 2000

[^^^]

The compilation below shows all the facts available to me at this stage about the mysterious yellow flowering peonies in the Far East of Russia and the neighboring regions of China, Korea & Japan.

The number of facts about this plant grows. With the pictures from Prof. Hosoki I've got a first visible fact too. The plant shows many differences to P. obovata, see the description of Mandl, which is still the best of all. The blooming time differs substantially, it is 4 weeks before obovata and lactiflora!

The identity of these plants is still unclear, but altogether there seem to be at least 5 taxa, which are synonymes or at least very close to each other. Maybe it is one and the same plant at all, but in the western world none of them is recognised as existing and the names are used erroneously. The first one is just a false name, not a plant, but this is most often used.

1. P. obovata with a yellow form mentioned by Maximovicz in 1859 as species non determ. (Maximowicz CJ , 1859 , Primitiae Florae Amurensis, 29-30, reimpress. ex P. albiflora, obovata, Mem Acad Sci.St.Petersb.Ser. 9.) Use the link to the complete text of this publication. The fact of Maximowicz's observation has been mentionened by Mandl in the description of P. vernalis. The name 'obovata' appears mostly only in the western literature, because there P. oreogeton and P. vernalis are not recognised. And sometimes it happened in the past, that a nursery offered a yellow-flowered P. obovata. Because there was no other recognised name to find! (Ruksans 3-4 years ago).

2. P. oreogeton S. Moore . This plant was described by the english botanist Moore after he received the collection of the missionar Rossa in 1877. The description is very short, but he was the first who mentioned this plant validly. See below

3. P. vernalis Mandl. This plant was described by the K&K Austrian-Hungarian war-prisoner Mandl during his prisonship in the russian Far-East after World War I. Here the german-english translation (by Globalink Power translator, corrected by me): Pictures see in the original text: part 1 part 2 (text see below)

4. The manchurian herbaceous peony, mentioned by Hosoki in his publications and examined in on its pigment-content. See the photos of Hosoki and its papers, especially Classification of Herbaceous Peony Cultivars by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA(RAPD) Analysis, look table 1! The manchurian herbaceous peony and the chinese cultivar 7 Yang qui fei contain the flower pigment Chalcone!!

5. The 'Tomski yellow'

In 1904 Finet & Gagnepain described such a peony too, but erroneously as P. wittmanniana Finet & Gagnepain.

In the russian literature P. oreogeton & P. vernalis are seen as synonymes, see

-Woroschilow & Artamanov below,

-but Kapinos & Dubrow mentions both in: Peonies in the Garden , 190p (translated by me).

At least I enclose the

-passages of Saunders and

-a russian publication on chemical contents.

-Another important source is Makedonskaja, but this paper is still not available, it was published in Wladiwostok in 1977, and its mentioned by Charkiewicz in its Flora of the Soviet Far East

- Probatova, N.S. & Sokolovskaya, A.P. (1986) [Chromosome Numbers of the Vascular Plants from the Far East of the USSR]

maps:

Károly Mandl

Paeonia vernalis

Oesterreichische Botanische Zeitschrift 1922,71, 177-179 fig. 2

Paeonia

translated by Globalink Power translator, corrected Dr.Carsten Burkhardt

Paeonia vernalis Mandl n. sp.

(Paeonia obovata Maxim. Prim. fl. Amurensis (1859) p. 29 pro parte minore; et Komarov: Fl. Mands. II. p. 226 . pro parte minore)

Rhizome e collo brevi crasso tuberibusque cylindrico-elngatis, subhorizontalibus saepa plasquam 1 cm. crassis constans. Caulis 7 dm. altus flexuosus basis squamis magnis rubescenti-suffultis circumvallatus , 3-4 foliatus. Folia florem semper superantia, erecta, inferiora biternata, supremum simpliciter ternatum. Foliola elliptica integerrima, usque 1.3 dm. longa et 7 cm. lata, breviter acuminata, basi in petiolum (in foliolis terminalibus sat longum ) arcuato - et decurrenti - attenuata, subtus pallidiora, glabberima. Flos unicus, terminalis, pedunculus 1.5 - 7 cm. longus. Sepala elliptica, petala oblongo-obovata, candida, micantia, 3-5 cm longa, radiatim patentia. Stamina 1.5 - 2cm. longa; filamenta basi atroviolacea superna cum antheris candida. Follicula maturum non vidi. Floret ab inition Maji usque ad initium Junii.

Crescit in silvis frondosis intactis prope oppid. Nikolsk-Ussurisk. in Siberia orientali.

Proxima p. obovatae Maxim. l.c. , a qua differt pedunculo brevi, ad summum 7 cm. longo (nec 7 - 16 cm.. longo) folio supremo semper breviore, flore majore, petalis radiatim patentibus, nec conniventibus, candidis, nec roseis, colore filamentorum, floretque quam P. obovata 20-30 diebus serius.

Paeonia vernalis Mandl1), Planta 70 cm altas. Flos albus, usque ad 12 cm diams. Filamentum dimidio infero obscure violaceum, superne album. Pedunculus breve 4.3—7 cm longuses.

The species stands very near to Paeonia Obovata Max., has been severed by Maximovicz2), however not named, since only a defective copy was available to him. Komaroff3) divided it as unnamed variety under P. Obovata Max. . According to his opinion, it only differs from that in the size and color. The important biological characteristic, the big difference in the time of the bloom, was not taken by him into account. During P. Obovata Max. grows usually in the bush and in light wooded areas, P. vernalis almost only in the dense jungle or in stopped rests of the same before. Individuals, that still eke out an existence at woodless positions, clearly show an atrophy. Paeonia obovata blooms according to the general Climate4) from beginning of June until middle of July, during P., vernalis from the beginning of May until beginning of June blooms, therefore a full month, which turns the type into a typical in the spring-plant, early.

The distinguishing characters in the construction of the plant, even if not always constant, is the following: Paeonia vernalis possesses 1 - 2, rarely 3 fruit-leaves, which are directed diagonally outside, far of each other (abstehen5), with dark-violet-red scar; ovaries with scar until 3 cm long and 0.8 cm thick. Stamens 1.5—2 cm long, low filament-half dark-violet, upper half whites. Bloom shortly stalked, bloom-stalk, from the uppermost leaf on measured, 4 until at most 7 cm long, so that the foliage-leaves tower above the flower far and the flower opened far lies like hidden amid the leaves. Bloom big, white, until 12 cm in the diameter. Bumble-bees procure the dusting.

With P. obovata, maximum towers above the flower sedentary at a 7—16 cm long stem the leaves and the significantly smaller, red flower doesn't open, possesses however unequally big flower-leaves, which leave an opening, through which insects slip like through a door, sideways.

Paeonia albiflora Pall. Vgl. Komaroff, Acta hoard. Petrop., XXII., Flor. Mansh., II., P. I., P., 224. (There is a composition of all former literature-statements). Besides the typical plant with purely white flower-leaves occur in the surroundings of Nikolsk-Ussurijsk individuals with rosy flowers, their foliage-leaves are weakly hairy or fully bald beneath like with the white-blooming individuals only at the veins. (Var. hirta Huth is described after rosy copies with hairy leaves.) On the other hand, also weißblühende individuals are located with strongly varying hairiness: beneath completely bald or only at the veins hairy or finally on the whole underside of the leaf weakly hairy.

1) L. C., P., 90

2) Maximovicz, Primitiae florae amurensis, P. 30, No., 61. Paeonia sp. non determ.

3) Komaroff, Acta Horti Petrop., Tom. XXII. Flor. Mansh, T., II, p.226; there a summary of all former literature-statements. .

4) dates, always to use only with caution, it is, since the vegetation-period begins in some years about four weeks later than in other years.

5) fruit-leaves of P. Obovata Max., usually 3—4, narrowly together lying, upright. (Vgl. Fig. 2, upper row.),

W.N. Woroschilow

Flora of the Soviet Far East

Flora Sowjetskovo Dalnievo Wostoka, Moskwa 1966, Izdatelstvo “Nauka ”

Translation from the Russian from Dr. C. Burkhardt (into english by help 0f Globalink Power Translator)

PAEONIACEAE—2523. Paeonia L.

1. Leaves with small gristly teeth at the edges. Blooms white or pink. ...... P. lactiflora.

—Leaves without gristly teeth at the edges. ............................................................ 2

2. Blooms light-cream, until 10 cm in the diameter. Leaves thin, beneath with few bristles, lateral leaves sedentary.......... P. vernalis.

—Blooms deep-pink. Leaves beneath densely hairy ............................................. 3

3. Blooms opened, until 8 cm in the diameter. Leaves beneath bluish, terminales small leaves broadly (length fewer than 2-x the width), lateral small leaves stalked ............................ P. japonica.

—Blooms opened not, approximately 2,5 cm im Diameter . Leaves solid, beneath very bluish, terminales small leaves prolongated- inverse egg-shaped (length more than 2-x of the width), lateral sedentary.................. P. obovata.

USSR Red Book 2^nd Ed.

translated by Globalink Power translator, corrected Dr.Carsten Burkhardt

P. oreogeton S. Moore (incl. P. vernalis Mandl.)

Statuses: rare plant

Meaning the type in the nature conservation. Ornament-plant, good perspectives for the breeding of ornament-planting. Endemit of the eastern Asia.

Short-description. Tree. The stalk wound, 60 - 70 cm high. The leaves are doubly - triternat, completely-edge-y, ledrig, powerful, oberseits green, beneath gray-blue. The leaf-segments are elliptical, turned back oval, sharpened in the end. The blooms are until 9 cm in the diameter, opened far, the bloom-stalk is 2 - 7 cm long. The blooms usually cream-know, very rarely pink. The Petalens are vice-versa oval, at the basis somewhat narrow. The staminoidale Disc almost is not visible. The Filamentes are dark-violet at the basis, in the upper part light. Sharpens dark-red. Fruit-leaves 1-4 (usually 1), bald, bent.

Occurrences: Chabarowskij and Primorskij Kraj, island Sachalin, Kurilen (Iturup, Schikotan):outside Russia still in Japan and China. Locations. Mixed -, needle - or wide-flaky foliage-forests, at rocky hillsides or in the shadow along from rivers.

Frequency and tendency of her/its/their change: rare. The plants grow separately or in small groups.

Factors the destruction. Massive collecting of the blooms for bouquets.

Culture. In culture in the Far eastern botanical garden and in the polar - alpine BG, in the botanical garden of the MGU and in the Zentr. BG the academy sciences. Under culture-conditions in the BG of the MGU, the plant reaches a similar height, if the conditions resemble those of the nature-location, the plants bloom and form seeds, dies after 5 however - 6 years from.

Methods of the protection. Under protection in the reservation Kedrowaja pad, Sichote - Alinskij and Ussurskij.

Necessary methods of the protection. It is necessarily more protectorates in the Primorskij kraj (in the Rayonen Wladiwostok, Chasanskij, Schkotowskij and Dalniegorskij) and on Sachalin (in the Poronajskij Rayon and near Juschno - Sachalinsk) .Informationsquellen: 1. Makedonskaja 1977 (process of M. S. Uspenskaja).

Artamanow

translated by Globalink Power translator, corrected Dr.Carsten Burkhardt

P. oreogeton 1877 the English botanist Moore got the herbarium of the missionary Rossa, who had traveled through China. After he had revised the material, he published the results, under which also the description of the Mountain-peony (P. oreogeton) can be found. In 1921, the German botanist Mandl described the Spring-peony on the basis of a living Exemplares (P. vernalis) that he had found in the surroundings of Ussurijsk. As he described the characteristics of this plant it has cream colored blooms, exactly like in the description of Moore, who had described them as being white. W.L. Komarow represented 1931 the opinion that the the Mountain-peony (P. oreogeton) is very similar in its morphological characteristics to the Spring-peony, why he summarized the two species. This point of view of the other botanists was not acknowledged in the later time. More exact examinations, which from N.W. Makedonskaja were undertaken, came to the conclusion, that Paeonia oreogeton and Paeonia vernalis are identical. The differences in the first-description in reference on the color of the petals, to explain with it, it is that the intensity of the bloom-color decreases with the Herbarising of the plants. [That disagrees with the opinion of Kemularia-Nathadse, which wrote about that, however that a cream - or yellow coloring in the representatives of the section Flavonia is sometimes only shown after drying. The translator]. Since the first-description took place as Mountain-peony (P. oreogeton), this name has the priority and the remains valid, even if the name Spring-peony describes this plant very well, since it blooms among the Far Eastern peonies as first.

P. oreogeton is a perennial plant with almost horizontally extended root-apparatus. The plain or rarer haired leaves possess in the spring a reddish - violet coloring. The blooms are single, cup-shaped, opened far or half-opened. The petales are white or rarely pink. The bloom-diameter is until 9 cm. The filaments are white, at the base violet, the anthers are yellow. The seeds are oval, dark brown, the weight of 1000 seeds amounts to 51,5 grams.

In the surroundings of Wladiwostok, the growth begins at the beginning of April. From the beginning of vegetation up to the bloom (in the first dekade of May) it needs 24 - 35 days. The single blooms wither after 3 days. The Mountain-peony blooms earlier not only, than the other peonies, its seeds also ripen earlier. The juncture the development -rhythm f this type, to form seeds with the saisonal climatic rhythm, and the ability, shows the successful adaptation at the conditions of the Far East. It goes through its vegetation-cycle successfully and requires no particular culture-methods.

Under garden-conditions increases the diameter of the blooms, the leaves and the roots. The plant blooms in the Taschkent BG even earlier, already in the second April-half. Under natural conditions, this plant can be found in the Chabarowskij and Primorskij Kraj and on the islands Sachalin, Iturup and Schikotan in Decidouus - and Mixed forests, where it grows at mountainsides and shady places along with rivers.

The main-reason for the decline of the species is collecting of the blooms for bouquets.

SOME ASIATIC PEONIES

Bulletin No. 48, Dec. 1931

By A. P. Saunders, President, American Peony Society, Clinton, N.Y.

APS 'Best of 75 y'.... Page 104/105:

Spread over parts of China and in Japan and Korea is a group of forms, all at least related to ash other, to which the following names have been attached:

In Japan: P. OBOVATA in its two forms, ROSEA and ALBA; P. JAPONICA.

In Korea: P. OREOGETON.

In western China: P. OBOVATA ALBA: P. WILLMOTTIAE.

P. OBOVATA is the native wild peony of Japan and occurs in both pink and white forms. Farrer ays of the variety ALBA: "The Japanese OBOVATA whose pearl-white goblets I remember above Shoji is a jewel quite outside any condemnation" (Alpine and Bog Plants, p. 53). I have not yet bloomed this plant, but I have seedlings coming on in various stages of maturity. Seeds of P. OBOVATA may be had from Japanese seedsmen.

P. JAPONICA (Miyabe and Takeda, Gard, Chron.,3rd ser., vol. xlviii., p. 366; 1910).—This seems to be a renaming of P. OBOVATA ALBA, the native white form of the Japanese wild peony; while P. OREOGETON (Baker and Moore, "Contributions to the Flora of N. China," J. Linn Soc., vol. xvii.; 1880) appears also to be at least closely related to the same plant.

Coming now to western China, we have two plants, or at least two names, P. OBOVATA ALBA and P. WILLMOTTIAE. I have bloomed the former of these, and a most beautiful plant it is. My plants of this OBOVATA ALBA came from Allgrove in England, who has continued the strain grown in Veitch's Nursery and derived from seed sent home from western China by the late William Purdom in 1909. The foliage of this plant is so distinct that, once seen, it could hardly thereafter be forgotten. The leaves are laid out with a peculiar flatness, and have a very handsome dull reddish-bronzy color; indeed, they look as if they might be of bronze. The flowers are of an absolute whiteness such as I know of in no other peony; and the whole plant possesses a quality of distinction which casts my young Japanese plants quite in the shade.

P. WILLMOTTIAE ("Dr. Stapf in Bot. Mag., vol. cxlii., T. 8667, made P. WILLMOTTIAE a distinct species; he regarded P. OBOVATA, Maxim, as its nearest ally"—communication from Kew).—Whether this plant is really distinct from the P. OBOVATA ALBA from the same region can only be finally determined by observations on the two plants growing side by side, I have as yet no plants of P. WILLMOTTIAE. But the late E. H. Wilson, who knew Chinese and Japanese plants as few have known them, made to me the following statement regarding this group a few months before his death: "There is one species native to Japan, P. OBOVATA and its white form P. OBOVATA ALBA, which seems to be the same as P. JAPONICA. There is also a Korean P. OBOVATA which is larger and hairier (P. OREOGETON.) Then, in western China, there is P. WILLMOTTIAE or P. OBOVATA ALBA. I consider these two identical, but the plant is a very distinct species from the P. OBOVATA ALBA in Japan. The plant from western China is a larger and far superior plant."

It should be added that Fedde (Report nov. spec. regni vegetab., 1913, pp. 319-320 gives P. JAPONICA as a good species, dinstinct from P. OBOVATA ALBA, while Matsumura (Index plant, Jap.) gives OREOGETON as a synonym of P. OBOVATA. And there the matter rests at present.

It is most desirable that all these plants should be brought together so that they may be studied side by side, not alone as to their visible characters, but also as to their behavior in cross-fertilization experiments with other species.

F.C. Stern (1946)

Maximowicz first described Paeonia obovata in 1859 from plants collected in the Amur district, north of Vladivostock. The name refers to the obovate shape of the acuminate terminal leaflet. This species is spread over a wide area in north-eastern Asia from eastern Siberia through Manchuria to China and Korea ; several forms exist in this wide distribution, differing slightly from each other in the hairiness of the leaflets. Schipczinsky (1921) described variations which mainly differ in the flowers opening widely or not. P.obovata is a tetraploid. The long attenuated carpels are characteristic of this and the other species in this group.

S. Moore described as a new species P.oreogeton, a plant that he thought had yellow flowers ; in his description the flower is described as " lutea ? " The specimen Moore described is in the[end page 74] Kew Herbarium and is undoubtedly a typical white flowered specimen of P.obovata. In the American Paeony Society's Bulletin of December, 1939, there is an interesting article by A. S. Loukashkin of the Manchuria Research Institute, who describes finding a paeony on May 25, 1939, in the region of the station of Ertaohotze, 80 kilometres east of Harbin in the Tachinshan Mountains, N. Manchuria, and reproduces a photograph of a cream-coloured paeony which he names P.oreogeton. There may, therefore, be a cream-coloured form of P.obovata, but the dried specimens from Manchuria appear to be typical P.obovata.

P.vernalis Mandl, 1919, was described by Mandl from a specimen collected in the districts near Vladivostock and preserved in the herbarium at the Botanical Institution of the University of Vienna. From photographs of this specimen it appears to agree exactly with P.obovata Maxim.

P.vernalis was described as having glabrous leaves, a character in which it agrees with P.japonica, but the petals are described as " spreading radiating," in which respect it resembles P.obovata and is unlike P.japonica. Further, it is said to come from Siberia, which is the location of P.obovata. Mandl does not in his description refer to the leaves being glabrous but says " Near P.obovata Maxim, from which it differs by its short peduncle 7 cm. long (not 7-16 cm. long), which is always shorter than the upper leaves, by its bigger flower, by the petals spreading—radiating not connivent, white not rose, by the colour of the filaments (described as dark blue at base, white upwards) and by flowering 20-30 days later than P.obovata." These characters do not appear to be very important. It is therefore surprising that Mandl did not refer to the glabrous leaves in which it differs from P.obovata. There may, of course, be a variety of P.obovata with glabrous leaves, as Handel-Mazzetti refers to such a plant from Manchuria and Yunnan.

Sokolov, P.D. (1986)

Rastiteljnye resursy SSSR, Isvetkovye rastenija ich chimitcheskii sostav, ispoljzovanie, paeoniaceae- Thymeleaceae : 7-11, Izdateljstvo "nauka", Leningrad,1986

Chemical capacity and curative effects of plants

Translation from the Russian of Dr.Carsten Burkhardt, Cottbus