The "Ugly Duckling"

Remember the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the Ugly Duckling, in which a cygnet finds itself somehow in with a brood of ducklings, all of whom mock the cygnet for being ugly? And then one day the cygnet grows up to be a beautiful swan, and all the ducks envy it.

Well, I have a plant from a batch of P mlokosewitschii seed which performs a similar feat each year.

Here it is in bud. A rather humdrum, grubby colour showing. (Ignore the flash of pink on the right margin!)




And here it is the next day, just opened.





Same day, side view of both the flowers the plant had this year. The one on the right is a bit further along than the other. In the background, some normal mlokosewitschii's.

Day 3, and we're starting to see something a bit more exciting developing.




Day 3 still, side view.





And a close-up of the right-hand flower.





Then the weather intervened in the form of a heavy rain and wind-storm overnight. Wretched timing...

So this is day 4, and the right-hand flower has been destroyed.




But the weather was not done yet, and overnight another storm or the same one backtracking (which happens in NS more than one would care to imagine) attacked my peonies.

Day 5, the ragged remnants.





Usually I can expect a flower to last at least a week before it falls apart... Heck, the pollen sacks hadn't even opened yet!
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I presume this plant to be a hybrid due to the fading red tones, but for all I know it might also be a natural variation within the species. Foliage is purely mlokosewitschii in form. The seedlot from which it (and the proper yellow one behind it) was grown was collected from my own plant, open-pollinated in my garden with the possibility of P anomala or P veitchii pollen getting involved.

An interesting hybrid of Paeonia mlokosewitschii

Sometimes an accidental (i.e. bee-crossed) hybrid can be interesting although not necessarily spectacular. Paeonia mlokosewitschii is a species which hybridizes readily -- and rather obviously when the flower isn't yellow.

This particular plant (bloom started on 31 May) starts rather drab but becomes quite lovely after a few days. I call it "Summit Ugly Duckling" (per Hans Christian Anderson's tale about the ostracized "duckling" which matured into a swan, to the envy of the rest of the ducks. (Summit is my nursery identifier)). Usually it lasts more than 4 days but the continuous wet and a heavy rain turned the petals to mush by day 5 this year.

Oh, by the way, it's a little bit fragrant.