Website/Catalog  (31 Mar 2010)  
 
Paeonia suffruticosa Andr. var. Banksii
See Paeonia suffruticosa Andr. for a description of the species.  The variety Banksii seems rather similar to Paeonia suffruticosa Andr. var. rosea which also see. Johnson’s Dictionary describes the flowers as purple.

Horticultural & Botanical History
‘This was introduced to the Royal Gardens at Kew, in 1789, and was the first of the species that was brought to Europe; it blossomed at Kew for the first time in 1793.  The flowers are usually quite double, and spreading, with an expansion of eight or nine inches; sometimes they are so full as to force the calyx back on the peduncle, and then the outer parts of the flower also turn downwards; but both this, and probably all the Moutans, vary as to the number of petals they produce, according to the soil they are placed in, and the degree of establishment of that soil.  Sometimes the Banksii produces flowers totally destitute of petals at all, and many are intermediate between that state and the fullest flower.  The petals are slightly tinged with blush, becoming nearly white at the edges, and are marked at the base with reddish pink; this darker colour sometimes regularly mixes with the paler parts of the petals, and sometimes has a slight appearance of running into it in rays, or featherings.  The petals gradually diminish in size as they approach the centre of the flower, and have there more of the reddish pink colour diffused over them.’  [Clericus in FC p.45/1842].  Probably one of the varieties that Sir Joseph Banks imported from China, as discussed under Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.  

History at Camden Park
Desideratum to James Backhouse, 1st February 1849 [MP A2933-1, p.183].  Macarthur records receiving four ‘Moutans, said to be various’, among a number of plants received from Captain Simpson in late 1849 or early 1850, apparently on the same ship as those accompanying Captain P. P. King.  The source is unclear.  [ML A1980-3].  This plant may be amongst these.

Book  (Jan 2000)  Page(s) 18-19.  
 
The first tree peony [in the West] was named Paeonia moutan banksii

Article (magazine)  (Jan 1955)  Page(s) 56.  
 
Alphabetical Check List of Tree Peony Names In  Public Collections And/or Available in Nurseries 1954-1955
Chinese, Lilac Rose, 'Banksi' (Chin. Int. Banks 1789), [Gardens] Morton Arboretum, TO [possibly TY John J Tyler Arboretum], Whitnal Park Botanical Gardens, [Nurseries] Oberlin Peony Gardens

Article (magazine)  (Jan 1955)  Page(s) 9-10.  
 
The first embassy of the Dutch East India Company to China traveled from Canton to Peking in 1656. One of its members later wrote about the trip and described the tea plants and pineapples. He described also tree peonies as being like roses but without thorns and twice as large, in color mostly white with a little purple, but also yellow (?) and red ( ?) . No one sems to have taken this story seriously until more than a hundred years later. Then, Sir Joseph Banks of Kew, having seen Chinese drawings, read the account and engaged a Mr. Duncan, a "medical gentleman," attached to the British East India Company, to procure a plant. This man procured a plant in Canton in 1787. The impression at that time was that the plants grew wild near Canton, but later it was reported that they were grown by gardeners in mountainous regions nearly a thousand miles away, and shipped by river boat in open baskets without soil. In Canton they were potted and sold, the price depending, like modern Easter Lilies, on the number of flower buds per plant. After flowering, they were thrown away as they would not thrive in the hot climate of Canton where they would have no winter rest. The Canton plant sent by Mr. Duncan to Kew, or a second plant received in 1789 by Sir Joseph Banks and planted at Spring Grove, Isleworth, about ten miles from London, was named Paeonia moutan banksi. In 1829, it was reported to be eight feet high and ten feet across. It was very double, magenta or purplish red at the center fading to light pink at the edges. The original plant lived until 1842 when it was destroyed during a building operation.

Website/Catalog  (1941)  Page(s) [3].  
 
Tree Peonies
Banksi. Double; pink with darker shades...$4 00

Website/Catalog  (1933)  Page(s) [4].  
 
Tree Peonies - The King of Flowers
Banksi—Double pink with darker shades... $6.00

Book  (1917)  Page(s) 199-200.  
 
From Chinese drawings and from praises bestowed on the plant in books, an " ardent desire was excited in Sir Joseph Banks—the head of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew—and others to obtain some of the plants." In 1786 Sir Joseph commissioned Mr. Duncan—" a medical gentleman attached to the East India Company's service"—to procure a plant for Kew. This was done and the first tree peony in England was
seen at the Royal Garden in 1787. The plant P. Banksii, which had flesh pink double flowers, and several others which were received from time to time, uniformly failed to thrive—due probably, as one English writer surmises, to being too rapidly forced as " stove " plants.

Book  (1917)  Page(s) 203.  
 
William Prince's catalogue for the following year for the Linnasan Botanic Garden at Flushing, Long Island, sets out these varieties and also P. moutan Banksi " Chinese purple tree peeony with magnificent fragrant flowers," all at five dollars apiece. So even in the days when the high cost of living was not a vital issue tree peonies were not an inexpensive hobby.

Book  (Apr 1907)  Page(s) 32.  
 
241. BANKSII, P. moutan (J. Banks. 1789)
(1) 1826, Trans. Hort. Soc. of London, Vol. 6, p. 472.
(2) 1836, Hovey Mag. Vol. 2, p. 369.
(3) 1848, Journal Hort Soc. Vol. 3, p. 236,
(4) 1875, Horticulturist p. 79.
(5) 1900, Cyc. Am. Hort. p. 1190.
 

Magazine  (22 Jan 1887)  Page(s) 76.  
 
The Tree Pæony. 
A hundred years have elapsed since the first living plant of the Tree Pæony was brought to this country from the gardens at Canton, and the honour of introducing it is due to Sir Joseph Banks.  He had heard of its existence in Chinese gardens, and engaged a Mr. Duncan, who was attached to the East India Company's service, to obtain plants of it and send them home.  Through Mr. Duncan's exertions the first live Moutan was received at Kew in 1787.  For 1400 years the Tree Pæony is said to have been cultivated by the Chinese, who would have us believe that it originated from Pæonia albiflora, also a native of China.  But such is not a fact, for it is proved beyond doubt that the Moutan is a true wild shrub, indigenous not to the southern parts of China, but to the northern provinces of Ho-Nan and Nan-Kin, where it inhabits mountainous regions and whence it was brought to Canton.  For countless generations Chinese gardeners have occupied themselves in raising new varieties of Hoa-Ouang (the king of flowers), as they call this Pæony, and fifty years ago Anderson asserted that they possessed no fewer than 250 distinct sorts representing all the colours which Pæonies are capable of producing.  They have crimsons of every shade to nearly black, whites, yellows, purples, roses, and even blues.  These are said to be all self-coloured, for, singularly enough, the Chinese reject variegated flowers, regarding them as unnatural.  Some varieties they call Pe-Leang- Kin (a hundred ounces of gold), in allusion to their great value.  In 1794 a second variety was introduced by a Mr. Greville; this was named rosea, the flowers being of a deep rose-pink colour, while those of Sir Joseph Bank's plant were blush-pink and double. [...]
The above varieties, viz., Banksi, rosea, and papaveracea, are all that are described in Anderson's "Monograph of the Genus Pæonia", given in vol. vi. of the Horticultural Society's Transactions (1838)...