Roy Klehm spoke to our local rock garden group this morning on rock garden peonies. That was only a tiny part of the morning. He gives a very good presentation covering many aspects of the peony phenomenon. This was not one of those presentations where one endures two hours of close ups of flowers. His material was nicely balanced and took into consideration hybridizing, the history of peony hybridizing, propagation, some aspects of the business angles, nursery management, and of course a nice look at a wide spectrum of peonies. When the presentation was over, out came a big cardboard box which contained the peonies which were then distributed to audience members. These were some of the cultivars described in his catalog as rock garden peonies. There are about a dozen very happy rock gardeners here in the greater Washington, D.C. area today! And no doubt there will soon be several dozen more who are not so happy when they find out what they missed because they did not attend the meeting. I learned something interesting which touches on something we discussed on this forum last year in early March. It all began when Lola asked a question about the germination of peony seed obtained through one of the exchanges under the name Chameleon. What I knew then is that there is a validly published name Paeonia × chameleon Troitsky (1930) ex Grossg (although I'm still suspicious about the spelling). That name is applied to the wild hybrid between P. caucasica (P. mascula triternata) and P. wittmanniana. As it turns out, I now know that there is also a peony cultivar named 'Chameleon'. I don't think this cultivated plant has any connection to the wild hybrid mentioned above. Check the Klehm catalog for the picture of 'Chameleon'. These chameleons might not be able to change their color, but some of them might have to change their labels! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7, where I can already count the buds on some of the tree peonies. My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/