Dear Jim et al; Just back from a few days soaking up some (horti)culture. I thought I'd throw out some 2 cent(es) on recent topics. There are 2 different Chameleons here. 1) P. x chamaeleon Troitsky 1930. his is described briefly in "The Genus Paeonia" by Halda and Waddick. It is natural hybrid between P. daurica x P. mlokoswetschii. P. daurica is the accepted name even though it was based on a misspelling of the name 'taurica'. That's the nomenclatural 'breaks'. Depending on your understanding of peony systematics (or not) there is considerable confusion over the entire 'Mloko group' and if you consider some species as synonymous and highly variable, or strictly defined and restricted, this hybrid is either a valid name or simply part of the single species. One questions is P. mlokosewitschii ALWAYS Yellow flowering? 2) P 'Chameleon' (note spelling) introduced by Klehm 2001. This is an early blooming single rose/lavender/ pink dwarf (15 in). Although no parentage is given it looks like it may involve P. anomala. Please note chamaeleon - lower case 'c' and an internal 'ae' versus the cultivar within single quotes and an upper case 'C". I do not hesitate to suggest to all the excellent site by my friend Dr. Carsten Burkhardt which includes this section http://paeo.de/name/index.html The main site address is http://paeo.de/ I suggest study of this site for any peony name. Next Epigeal versus hypogeal germination of peonies. I discussed this in some detail in the above mentioned book, but there seems to no real rhyme or reason. Only three "species" of peony seem to produce cotyledons in their normal germination cycle. I use the quoites since the three are P. brownii (if you consider this a sp or subsp from the very close P. californica), P. tenuifolia and P. rockii (again is you consider this an independent species or a subspecies of P. suffrutiocsa). Since the genus is divided into 3 subgenera, it seems appropriate that the three species discussed here each belong to a separate subgenus; adding to the speculation. I leave the speculation to our other list members. Hope this helps a bit. Best Jim W. -- Dr. James W. Waddick 8871 NW Brostrom Rd. Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 USA Ph. 816-746-1949 Zone 5 Record low -23F Summer 100F +