A Sudden Outburst of Sun-- and Peonies

The cold and grey of most of May was good for one thing: watching the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) bike race on tv. The Spaniard Contador, after whose exploits I've named a peony, was in a fine fettle, lit up the race a few times, and won the thing. Great style to watch on the bike, and explosive uphill. Motivating.

Finally things warmed up here, outside, although remaining cloudy. Then 2 days of sun and it was suddenly almost hard to hear anything except peonies popping.

I had decided to try my darndest to prevent the bees from cross-pollinating the darker-flowered species into the lighter ones. This has meant clipping the buds of many plants while they are well-coloured but not quite open. But what to do with them all? Well, a couple of floating cut-flower projects have evolved. 6 buds of P mascula filled a large glass mixing bowl once all opened, but I'd have needed over a dozen of them. So some clean plastic planting trays sufficed, or will eventually, for the rest, holding about 40 buds each (now working on the third). In addition to mascula, there are a lot of P caucasica and P kesrouanensis, some P ruprechtiana (all 3 of those of the mascula clan and very similar), and a few early P veitchii and P officinalis.













So now the yellows and whites are free to be bee'd without muddying their colours, if not exactly keeping their gene pools clean (I'll do some hand-pollinating with a paintbrush to help that aspect). But wait, I also really need seed of P triternata, so there is the slight chance of some pink after all. Oh well. And then there's the bright red P tenuifolia in bloom in one location: that colour is welcome to mix with the yellows if it wants!

Blogger refuses to insert photos in the order I send them, and moving them around has crashed the blog more than once, so the following are not in my preferred order; but what the heck.

White form of P steveniana, flower and plant. That's about as open as the flowers of this species get.











A very pale form of P mlokosewitschii, which started to open yesterday. There is a subtle blush of pink at the base of the petals. I call this the "Moonlight form". This plant is one year out of the pot, where it had 2 stems last year.

P mlokosewitschii proper, the Golden Peony.

P steveniana proper, a bit paler than mlokosewitschii and a bit darker than P tomentosa (which is done now). And a grouping of 3 plants.

And just to prove that I'm not totally against the "pinks" this year, a nice dark-flowered form of P caucasica.

A few late noses and shoots, and another first flower

Paeonia humilis, also classified as a dwarf subspecies humilis of the Apothecarie's Peony Paeonia officinalis, is just coming up in the display bed next to the Fern-leaf peony. But it was just transplanted here last fall from the open field, so it may normally be earlier.

And also in the display, a.k.a. datum, beds the Siberian Paeonia obovata is just now starting to shoot. It looks decidedly weird surrounded by 2-ft tall peonies in full leaf and ready to flower! The shoot on the right already has a small flower bud sitting on it.
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Meanwhile beside P. mascula the somewhat similar Paeonia ruprechtiana has opened today.

This species ranges from SE Europe to the Caucasus. My plants are from seed reportedly (3rd hand) wild collected in the SW of the Republic of Georgia (Not Georgia USA, but over in the Caucasus region.) Its' natural environment is woodlands and mountainsides in the subalpine zone and lower. Here it is equally vigorous in part shade as in my woods; I don't have any in the open field.

I'm using the name on the label the seed arrived with. Distinctions between some of these very similar species and subsp are often beyond my ability effectively to apply the botanical descriptions of the books to the actual plant sitting in front of me.

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 1)

The past week or so was cool and miserable; peony development was on hold. Yesterday and today were a sudden burst of summer and things bombed right along in the garden. Mainly for academic interest, I made today a datum day and took pics of most of the peony species in whatever state of development they were averaging (plants in different locations start at different times of course, depending on soil warming rates etc.)

First, Paeonia tomentosa, Woolly Peony. These are moving right along, nice fat buds visible as soon as the leafs start to deploy.



Here, Paeonia tenuifolia ssp lithophila, the smaller form of the Fern-leaf Peony. Buds already formed, cute little clusters of bristles. Yesterday they were just little red blobs a mere cm tall.

Note the lack of red in the barely emerged leafs of this one, Paeonia peregrina; very distinctive. Of 4 plants in close proximity, this is the only one showing yet-- and this one wasn't showing 2 days ago.

Paeonia emodi, the white peony from the Himalayas. I believe there is a single small flower bud forming in the midst of all those leafs (wishful thinking perhaps?) but it is still small and not visible in the photo. Fingers crossed... [and noted the next day, yes there is obviously a flower bud forming. Yay!]

And here Paeonia ruprechtiana; reddish-purple tints, fat buds at the ready.





To be continued...

A few more peony seed shows

These will all look rather similar, as the species here are all closely related within the "Paeonia mascula complex (or grouping)". Photos are all from 31 August, and the pods had mostly been open for 2 days to a week at that time.

(For more information about the species presented, you will find it in the June/July archives.)
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Paeonia caucasica.






Paeonia ruprechtiana.

Paeonia mascula.

Paeonia kesrouanensis.

Peony seedpods- carpels

The seedpods of Peonies are called carpels. They are generally large and obvious, and can add some summer interest to the foliage groups of peony clumps. Some become quite outstanding in the fall when the seed ripens and the carpels open. Of course, not all the flowers will develop a seed pod, as there is sometimes a failure to pollinate for reasons of weather etc. And not all flowers of a species will have the same number of carpels, so where you see two they may actually have from 1 to 4 or sometimes 5.

The next few postings will show photos of carpels of most of my species. I've separated them by the general characteristics of the plants. Some of them are very similar, some are quite distinctive. Photos were all taken on the same day.
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Today's photos are of the Mascula-type grouping.

Carpels of Paeonia mascula.






Carpels of Paeonia tomentosa.






Carpels of Paeonia ruprechtiana.

Still fearing to tread - Paeonia kesrouanensis. And another pic of P ruprechtiana

A number of my various species are all rushing into bloom together here; I'll try to keep them in some semblance of the order of bloom, but won't be able to post them all on the date of their actual bloom commencement. Today's subject actually first opened 2 days ago.

Named after a village in Lebanon, Paeonia kesrouanensis is considered a subspecies of P mascula by some botanists, so if you thought it looked familiar you are right. Thus, syononym Paeonia mascula subsp kesrouanensis; and also P turcica which is another clue to part of it's limited range... .

This second flower close-up is of the plant in the woods bed, a bit paler and with a 2-tone thing going on.

My plants of this species are grown from seed collected from plants in cultivation and thus may not be true to name, although there is not much variation between them. Mine are more vigorous in the partially shaded bed near the house than they are in the woods bed, one plant being 7 flowering stems already, as compared to 1 to 3 on most of the other species plants of the same age. Unusually, they are flowering simultaneously in both areas.

Kesrouanensis is native to Asia Minor, ranging from Turkey to Syria, growing in forest, scrub, and rocky slopes (notably limestone which would indicate a preference for a higher pH of soil than it gets here!) It's reportedly uncommon in cultivation, but has proven easy and adaptable here so far.
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The large bud of P ruprechtiana has opened, and what a massive flower it is! Well worth the wait. Packed with anthers and pollen, it has wasted no time in collecting a line of pollen all along the stigmas.

The plant grouping this one belongs to is curious in one respect. In the woodland bed the peonies are planted in pairs, with one of each on the southerly side of the strip bed, and the other on the northerly side. In all cases except ruprechtiana the more southerly plant is larger and more vigorous than the northerly one of the pair which it shades somewhat. This indicates to me that this species seems to prefer even more shade -- or that there's something going on in a little pocket of lucky soil.

Where mortals fear to tread - Paeonia ruprechtiana

Another beauty (well, they all are according to me), Paeonia ruprechtiana (synonyms P daurica subsp daurica and about a dozen other names) is very similar to P mascula. However the single most differentiating difference is that it's seeds are globular, according to JJ Halda. To me there is a difference in quality of the leaf (please don't ask me to explain just what! and I'm not saying it is better or worse, just different) and the pollen sacs of the anthers are reddish here as opposed to yellow on P mascula, although Halda indicates that even the anther filament colour is not uniform through the range of the species.

Please keep in mind that I'm using the name on the label the seed arrived with. Distinctions between some of these very similar species and subsp are often beyond my ability effectively to apply the botanical descriptions of the books to the actual plant sitting in front of me. (That's the part where this mortal fears to tread.)

The size of the bud! This impressive thing is on a plant in my woodland bed. The rest of them were not as large.

This species ranges from SE Europe to the Caucasus. My plants are from seed reportedly (3rd hand) wild collected in the SW of the Republic of Georgia (Not Georgia USA, but over in the Caucasus region.) Its' natural environment is woodlands and mountainsides in the subalpine zone and lower. Here it is equally vigorous in part shade as in my woods; I didn't have enough plants to put any in the open field yet.
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Finally a decent day for a bike ride. Even my old legs are faster than the black flies, and they haven't figured out how to set a mass ambush yet, so it was nice to be outdoors and not have the things setting up house in ears and eyes and nose. (ok, small exaggeration...)