Paeonia species

[janemcgary]

Paeonia species are starting to flower here in northwestern Oregon, and as usual I was looking around the web for information and help verifying their identity, as mine are all seed-grown. I came upon this excellent site: https://www.peonysociety.eu/peony-species/ . People from all around the world post photos with brief text there. I was amazed to see an emerging cluster of Paeonia brownii (or P. californica) in a garden in Finland. I'm still trying to identify one that came up, probably from a forgotten seed that got moved to this garden in potting soil with another plant. I have Josef and Jarmila Halda's sumptuous book on the genus and will see what I can find there to match this plant with crimson flowers and sharply lobed, dark green leaves. Another spot to watch is a large colony of P. daurica seedlings, the offspring of P. daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii (I think that's the current concept of the yellow form), left to grow in hope of another real yellow, but so far mainly cream flushed pink. The yellow parent, from a Halda collection, is stronger in color than the wild plants I saw in the Caucasus. The common pink form of P. daurica grows nearby, and here and there around the garden, possibly planted by jays.