Tree Peony

Growth habit

Shrub

Perennation

Long-lived perennial

Native distribution

China

Source of plant

Seneca Hill Perennials, Polly Hill Arboretum

Description

Shrubs to 1.5 m tall. Stems brown-gray. Proximal leaves 2-pinnate, with 11--15 leaflets; leaflets lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, mostly entire, often terminal ones 2- or 3-lobed, very occasionally 1 or 2 lateral ones also 2-lobed, 5--12 — 2.5--5 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base rounded, apex acute. Flowers solitary, terminal, single, 12--14 cm wide. Bracts 1--4, green, leaflike. Sepals 3 or 4, green-yellow, broadly elliptic or ovate-orbicular, 1.5--3.1 — 1.5--2.5 cm, apex acute or shortly caudate. Petals ca. 11, white, obovate, 5.5--6.5 — 3.8--5 cm, apex emarginate. Filaments purple-red; anthers yellow. Disc wholly enveloping carpels, purple-red, leathery, apex dentate or lobed. Carpels 5, densely tomentose. Stigmas red. Follicles oblong, densely brown-yellow tomentose. Fl. Apr--May, fr. Aug. 2n = 10*.

* Cliffs; ca. 300 m. Native in C Anhui and W Henan; widely cultivated in China and elsewhere.

USDA Hardiness Zone

6

Special characteristics

medicinal/pharmaceutical