Website/Catalog  (29 Jan 2010)  Includes photo(s).
 
Peonia peregrina Mill.
A fully-hardy herbaceous perennial with erect stems, deeply cut leaves and single, bowl-shaped, glistening, deep red flowers in spring and summer. To 60cm.  [RHSE, Hortus].  

Horticultural & Botanical History
‘This is often taken for Paeonia humilis, but does not at all agree with Retzius’s description of that species, which has narrower and more divided leaves, and nearly naked germens and capsules; not at all tomentose.’  [BM t.1050/1807].  Originally introduced to Britain some time in the 18th century or earlier, re-introduced to Britain as Paeonia lobata in 1821.

History at Camden Park
Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [B.388/1850]. It is possible that this plant, and others first appearing in the catalogue in 1850, were obtained from Loddiges’ nursery as ‘Paeonia, any of the showy varieties except Whitleyi’, were included among desiderata in a letter dated 16th April 1846.  [MP A2933-1, p.147].

Notes
Another perhaps less likely possibility is Paeonia officinalis L. byzantina atrorubens.  This has remarkably large blossoms, measuring from six to nine inches across, ‘readily recognised by its dark-tinted stems and foliage, and by the still richer and deeper crimson of its magnificent blooms.’  [Gard. Chron. 1854].

Book  (2010)  Page(s) 215.  
 
The identity of Paeonia peregrina Mill. had been problematic for a century and a half since its description as new. Miller (1768) described this taxon rather clearly as "foliis difformiter lobatis, lobis incises", "with a deep red flower" and "growing naturally in the Levant (ca. 15 km N of Istanbul)". However, later authors failed to follow Miller's description. Sims (1807) followed the locality of P. peregrina, the Levant, but not the characters, and his "P. peregrina" is actually a new species, described as P. arietina by Anderson (1818). Anderson (1818) stated: "P. peregrina, de Candolle informs us, is a native of the mountains of Provence and Languedoc, chiefly near Montpellier..." and he also cited "Bot. Mag. 1050", which actually refers to P. arietina. Furthermore, he described the peony from Constantinople (Istanbul) as a new species, P. decora (Anderson, 1818). It is clear, therefore, that Anderson (1818) treated P. officinalis subsp. huthii from S France as P. peregrina, while describing the real P. peregrina as P. decora....It was Stapf (1918) who clarified the persisting confusion and correctly illustrated P. peregrina for the first time.

Book  (2005)  Page(s) Vol. I, p. 554.  Includes photo(s).
 
Paeoniaceae (Şakayıkgiller), Paeonia peregrina (Yabancı şakayık). 5 petals. North-western and north-central Turkey. Grasslands, pastures, road-sides, fields, cultivated ground. 1000-2000 m. April-May. Perennial herb.

Book  (2005)  Page(s) 149.  Includes photo(s).
 
Aegean region. Spil Mountain. Manisa
Paeonia peregrina

Book  (Jan 1999)  Page(s) 633.  
 
Paeonia peregrina deep red flowers with golden anthers

Book  (Jan 1999)  Page(s) 42, 43, 324.  Includes photo(s).
 
Page 42: [Photo]
Page 43: Paeonia peregrina one of the first to be cultivated in Europe... in England it was called the Red Peony of Constantinople... an intense, pure red
Page 324: P. peregrina Herbaceous Peony... red

Book  (1999)  Page(s) 138.  
 
Paeonia peregrina, Portugal, Spain, 1961

Magazine  (1918)  Page(s) tab 8742 (cont'd).  
 
Description. — Herb, perennial ; stem glabrous. Leaves : lower twice ternate, their divisions distinctly stalked, lateral segments sessile or nearly so, intermediate ones rather long stalked, the lobes more or less oblanceolate or oblong, or the intermediate ones cuneate-obovate and lobulate, the lobules coarsely or incised toothed, the teeth acute or almost acuminate ; upper cauline leaves with their divisions more or less reduced, the highest appressed to the calyx ; all glabrous, rather polished, pale beneath, occasionally with a few rather stiff hairs on the lower surface ; intermediate segments, excluding the stalk, 2 1/2-4 1/4 in. long; lateral lobes 1/3-1 1/4 in. wide. Flowers with the very concave petals aggregated in an open cup, 2 1/4-4 in. across, brilliant deep red. Sepals 4, very concave, oblong or wide elliptic, glabrous, 1-1 3/4 in. long, Petals 7-11, wide obovate or elliptic, slightly crenulate upwards. Stamens with red filaments, usually somewhat paler upwards ; anthers golden yellow, up to 1/5 in. long. Carpels usually 3, rarely 4, ovoid, very densely tomentose with white hairs; stigmas laterally compressed, recurved, red. Follicles when ripe stellately spreading, oblong, slightly recurved at the tip, up to 2 in. long, covered with a dense dirty white or yellowish tomentum. Seeds elliptic-globose, about 1/4 in. long, black, shining.

Tab. 8742.— Fig. 1, a carpel with stamens, showing insertion ; 2 and 3, anthers ; 4. ripe fruit ; 5, seed :— all enlarged except 4, which is of natural size.

Magazine  (1918)  Page(s) tab 8742.  Includes photo(s).
 
PAEONIA PEREGRINA.
South-eastern Europe and North-western Asia Minor.
Ranunculaceae. Tribe Paeonieae.
PAEONIA, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant, vol. i. p. 60.
Paeonia peregrina, Mill. Gard. Dict. ed. viii. n. 3 ; Fritsch in Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien, vol. xlix. p. 240 ; nec Desf., nec DC. ; affinis P. officinalis, Linn., sed foliis firmioribus, corum lobis apice inciso-dentatis, florum colore saturate rubro et carpellis maturescentibus eximie villoso-tomentosis distincta.

Herba perennis, caule glabro. Folia inferiora biternata, divisionibus longe petiolulatis, segmentis lateralibus sessilibus vel subsessilibus, intermediis longiuscule petiolulatis, lobis magis minusve oblauceolatis vel oblongis vel (intermediis) cuneato-obovatis lobulatis lobulis grosse vel inciso-dentatis, dentibus acutis vel subacuminatis, superiora (caulina) quoad divisiones magis minusve redacta, summa calyci ipso adpressa; omnia glabra, lucidula, subtus pallida, rarissime pilis nonnullis rigidulis in pagina inferiore ; segmenta intermedia petiolulo dempto 6-12 cm. longa ; lobi laterales 1-3 cm. lati. Flores ob petala valde concava aperto-cupulares, 6-10 cm. diametro, pulcherrime saturate rubri. Sepala 4, valde concava, oblonga vel late elliptica, glabra, 2 5-4 cm. longa. Petala 7-11, late obovata vel elliptica, superne leviter crenulata. Staminum filamenta rubra, superne plerumque pallescentia ; antherae aureae, ad 5 mm. longae. Carpella plerumque 3 vel rarius 4, ovoidea, densissime albido-villoso-tomentosa ; stigmata a latere compressa, recurva, rubra. Folliculi maturi stellatim patentes, oblongi, apice paulo recurvi, ad 5 cm. longi, villo denso sordide albido vel flavescente longiusculo obtecti. Semina elliptico-globosa, circiter 7 mm. longa, atra, nitida. — P. lobata, DC. Syst. vol. i. p. 391, pro synonymis plurimis et statione Byzantina ; Sweet, Flow. Gard. vol. i. t. 70 ; nec Desf.. nec DC. Prodr. P. decora, Anders, in Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xii. p. 273 ; DC. Prodr. vol. i. p. 66 ; Boiss. Fl. Or. vol. i. p. 98 Huth, Mon. Paeon, in Engl. Bot. Jahrb. vol. xiv. p. 269 ; Baker in Gard. Chron. 1897, vol. xxii. p. 10 ; Lynch in Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. vol. xii. p. 439 Petrov., Fl. Nish, p. 47 ; Velenovsky, Fl. Bulg. p. 16 ; Suppl. i. p. 11 P. romanica, Brandza in An. Acad. Roman, ser. ii. vol. ii. p. 587, t. 2; Prodr. Fl. Roman, p. 529 ; Grecescu, Consp. Fl. Roman, p. 43.— O. Stapf.

The fine Paeony here figured is met with fairly generally in the Balkan Peninsula from Serbia and Macedonia to Roumania, and our illustration has been prepared from a plant raised from seed sent to Kew from the Geneva Botanic Garden under the name P. romanica. But the species also extends beyond the Hellespont ; it has been collected on the Keshish Dagh near Broussa, and quite recently plants raised from seed secured in the neighbourhood of Smyrna have been grown in English gardens as "Sunbeam." So far, however, from being, as this name would suggest, a plant of garden origin recently raised, this Paeony is a very distinct and natural species with a long and interesting cultural history. It was known in the XVI Century to Clusius, who, in an account of the vegetation of Pannonia, published in 1583, says that it was then grown in the gardens of certain noble dames from seeds received from Constantinople. Comparing it with our P. officinalis, Linn., the "Paeony then familiar in gardens further west, Clusius pointed out the thicker leaves and the richer red, not purple, flowers of this Balkan plant which he aptly termed " Paeonia byzantina." In 1601 Clusius included the species in his renowned Historia and supplied an excellent figure. It was still rare in Europe, though we learn from Bessler that quite early in the XVII Century it has got as far west as the famous garden of the Bishops of Eystedt in Bavaria. The elder Bauhin mentioned the plant in his Pinax in 1623, but altered its name to " Paeonia peregrina flore dilute et sature rubenti." Parkinson in his Paradisus in 1629 called it the " red peony of Constantinople," and supplied a figure which, though clumsy, is unmistakable. It was again mentioned by Johnson, who gave a copy of the figure by Clusius in the 1636 edition of Gerard's Herbal. This figure Morison reproduced in his Historia in 1699. Miller did not mention this Paeony until 1759 when, in the seventh edition of his Gardeners Dictionary, he included it as "Paeonia peregrina flore sature rubente," and gave the Levant as its home. In 1768, in the eighth edition of his work, Miller, introducing the Linnean method of naming his plants, termed this one P. peregrina, a name which still remains valid. But Miller appears to have known the plant thus designated by him only from the figures given by earlier writers. There is no example of the species among his specimens in the Banksian herbarium ; the only sheet there on which Miller has written the name P. peregrina bears two small specimens, both received by him from the Paris garden ; these twospecimens belong to two distinct species ; neither of the two is the "red peony of Constantinople." One, the more meagre of the two, appears to be but a form of our common garden Paeony with quite glabrous leaves ; the other represents a type which occurs in the mountains of southern France and corresponds most closely with P. monticola, Jordan. Into the pitfall thus prepared the first to stumble was the editor of this work, at t. 1050 of which Sims in 1807 published as P. peregrina, " upon the authority of the Banksian herbarium," not the Byzantine plant to which the name belongs, but the plant of Provence and Languedoc which Miller had mistaken for it. The elder Decandolle followed Sims in the third edition of the Flore Française in 1815 and maintained the same attitude in his Systema in 1818. The error, as errors will, has survived in many subsequent publications, and although the conception of the species to which the name P. peregrina has, since 1807, been misapplied may at times have varied, the Balkan plant which Miller so designated has always been excluded from it. This is doubtless partly due to the fact that, as early as 1818, the right of that plant to rank as a species had been revindicated by Anderson who, overlooking the confusion created in this Magazine, renamed it P. decora ; partly to the circumstance that in the same year Decandolle, in his Systema, confused the Byzantine plant with P. lobata, Desf., a name under which, nowithstanding the trouble Decandolle took to rectify his error in the Prodromus in 1824, our species is still often grown in gardens. Handsome as a denizen in a herbaceous border, P. peregrina possesses the further recommendation of being easily cultivated. It flowers profusely and ripens seeds freely.

Book  (1917)  Page(s) 229.  
 
Peregrina (foreign). Southern Europe. Flowers are deep red. Lower leaves finely divided.