Perennial herbs with fleshy roots or soft-wooded shrubs

Leaves alternate, compound, at least the lower ones. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric, large, solitary and terminal; floral bracts 1–12, leafy, immediately below calyx. Sepals 5, free, persistent, unequal. Petals 5–10, free. Stamens numerous; anthers opening by longitudinal slits. Carpels 1–8, free on a fleshy disc; ovules numerous, lateral, in 2 rows. Fruit of 1–5 diverging follicles, each with several seeds, opening by a slit on the upper side; seeds large.

Contains one genus.

Paeonia L.

Perennial herbs, usually with woody stems, dying down in winter or evergreen, with erect, tuberous stocks and fleshy roots. Leaves large, alternate, biternate or further divided. Flowers large. Sepals 5. Petals 5–10 (except in double-flowered cultivars), free, white or red. Stamens numerous. Fruit of 1–5 follicles; seeds in 2 rows.

Contains about 30 species in southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Asia from Caucasus to Japan and western North America.

Melville, R. (1983). The affinity of Paeonia. Kew Bull. 38 : 87–105.

Stern, F. C. (1946). A study of the Genus Paeonia. London.

Perennial herb with thick, carrot-like, woody roots. Stems 30–60 cm, pale green, tinted rose or purplish-red, arising from 4–7, lingulate, chartaceous, purplish basal sheaths 1–7 × 1.0–1.5 cm, distinctively sulcate, erect, glabrous or hairy. Leaves 4–7 in a clump; lamina 20–25 × 20–25 cm, bright green, tinged purple or pink, broadly ovate in outline, irregularly ternate or biternate, the ultimate segments 12–21, 6–14 × 2.5–7.0 cm, elliptical, oblong, or elliptical-lanceolate, often distinctly asymmetrical, acute at apex, entire, the petiolules up to 11 cm, the petiole 5–12 cm, all glabrous. Flowers solitary per stem, shallowly cup-shaped, 6.5–14 cm in diameter, sweetly scented; peduncle 3–12 cm.