The Crosses of A. P. Saunders

<LUT X DEL>

„I have a number of other crosses made between species mentioned at the beginning of this article, but they are of more recent date, and it will be some years before anything can be said as to results. I made some hybrids last spring between P. lutea and P. Delavayi. This is a cross that takes readily; so readily in fact that it has led me to suspect that Delavayi may itself be only a form of lutea. As Delavayi is but little known, I may say a word about it. It is of course shrubby; or rather in this climate bears the intermediate character which P. lutea itself has. In our severe winters these plants usually kill back to the ground every year, and the new growth is formed from the crown or from the base of the old branches. Both of them bloom very well, however, and they do not seem to suffer very much from their severe winter-killing. The foliage of P. Delavayi has almost exactly the same fern-like character as that of P. lutea. The blooms of lutea are uniformly bright yellow. Those of Delavayi which I saw at Vilmorin's were a sort of mahogany brown, but in form like those of lutea. My plants of Delavayi, which came from Vilmorin were I understand seedlings. They have blooms the petals of which are mahogany brown at the base, fading to yellow at the edges. The plant is very handsome in foliage but unsatisfactory in flower, the blooms being smaller and duller than those of lutea, while they share with that species the modest habit of hiding themselves among the foliage. I am not very sanguine of obtaining anything of value from this cross, but in this case as in most others of work along such lines, one's expectations are likely to be disappointed, and where success is least expected something good may turn up in the end.“ (SOME NEW HYBRID PEONIES , By A. P. Saunders, Clinton, New York in: American Peony Society Bulletin No. 27 — June 1926:)