Book  (Jan 1999)  Page(s) 20, 23.  
 
Page 20: Today plants previously described as members of [Paeonia suffruticosa] are thought to be crosses between four wild species identified and named by the distinguished Chinese botanist Professor Hong Tao and his colleagues in 1992. So P. suffruticosa no longer exists.
Page 23: a species that is no longer recognized

Book  (Jan 1999)  Page(s) 16.  
 
China is also the unique home of the wild Moutan or tree peony from which all others are bred.

Book  (1965)  Page(s) 541.  
 
4. Paeonia suffruticosa Andr. P. moutan Sims — Botan. Sparsely branched small shrub 1-1.5 m. high; leaflets usually 3- to 5-cleft, often whitish beneath; flowers large and showy, the disc thick-membranous, enveloping the carpels; carpels densely brown-pubescent. Long cultivated in our area and many cultivars of it are grown. - nw. China, Tibet, and Bhutan.

Article (magazine)  (Jan 1955)  Page(s) 12.  
 
Paeonia suffruticosa Andrews, Bot. Rep. 1804. Name means "somewhat like a shrub."
Syn. P. arborea Donn, Cat. Hort. Cantabr. 1804.
P. moutan Sims, Bot. Mag. 1808.
P. papaveracea Andrews, Bot. Rep. 1807, and various combinations of the above.
The Moutan tree peony was first known as a cultivated plant. It has leaflets deeply and incisely divided, the apex of the lobes and teeth sharply acute. When the wild type was collected by W. Purdom in 1910, Rehder, in Journ. Arnold Arboretum, 1920, named it variety spontanea .Its leaflets were more or less unequally trilobate and apex of lobes and teeth blunt. This botanical variety has white flowers with magenta purple blotches, but other wild types are reported to have magenta purple flowers.

Article (magazine)  (Jan 1955)  Page(s) 17.  
 
The name Moutan, that came with the plant, was corrupted to Bhotan or Botan which is still the Japanese name for peony. The tree peony enjoyed great esteem as early as 724 A.D. Later authors discoursed on its medidnal value and described its colors. Some estimated that there were from five hundred to a thousand distinct kinds.

Article (magazine)  (Jan 1955)  Page(s) 8-10.  
 
The name of the Moutan tree peony is derived from the Chinese Mow tan, or Muh tang, or Mew tang. It grows in northwestern China ordinarily from three to six feet and has occasionally been reported up to ten feet in the wild. The wild plant became known only in 1910. There is practically no literature about this wild form, yet botanical, horticultural, artistic, poetic, medical, and historical references, designs, and paintings go back at least to 536 A .D. and refer to garden forms originated by the Chinese. Even the most ancient authors refer to it as a flower long cultivated.
The ancient Chinese called the tree peony the "King of Flowers," and some of them apparently believed that older generations of Chinese had actually produced the tree peony from the herbaceous peony by their gardening skill. Much was written about their supposed medicinal value and some authors state that only after the year 600 were the plants widely grown as ornamentals. By 750 there were known, and described, thirty named varieties. There were ancient accounts of flowers, yellow, blue, violet and black, selling at fantastic prices like "one hundred ounces of gold." Whether these colors were the fabric of the imagination, or obtained by the use of dyes, is not known. 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 wer e grown by gardeners in mountainous in 1789 by Sir Joseph Banks and planted at Spring Grove, Isleworth, about ten miles from London, was named Paeonia moutan banksi. 

Website/Catalog  (1941)  Page(s) [3].  
 
Tree Peonies
Moutan. Single; purplish-red. The wild Tree Peony of Thibet [sic]. Most vigorous and profuse...$4 00

Website/Catalog  (1939)  Page(s) [1].  
 
Tree Peonies (Pæonia arborea)
Japanese Tree Peonies 
English translation in parentheses
47. Moutan Large; single; maroon-red. Free bloomer. First to flower... $4.00

Website/Catalog  (1933)  Page(s) [4].  
 
Tree Peonies - The King of Flowers
Moutan—Single, red... $3.00

Website/Catalog  (1921)  Page(s) 68.  
 
Paeonia arborea...Moutan. Double, whitish pink, purple towards the centre...1 piece M 15,00-25,00