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How the peony was introduced to America

The vast majority of the peonies grown today are cultivars of the Asian Paeonia lactiflora, the first of which arrived in the US from China in the early 1800s causing a sensation.

But long before the lactifloras appeared, the colonists were growing a completely different species, the European P. officinalis, which had been revered as a medicinal herb since ancient times. (Officinalis means “of the [apothecary] shops.”)

Since they bloom a week or two earlier than the lactifloras, the officinalis clan came to be called May-flowering peonies.

Read more at the Old House Gardens Blog
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