What are the characteristics of peonies? A detailed guide in one article

The peony is a deciduous shrub in the genus Paeonia, family Ranunculaceae. It is a traditional famous flower native to China, also known as woody peony, Luoyang flower, deer leek, and so on. Its flowers are large and highly variable, with brilliant colors and a magnificent appearance, and it is hailed as the “king of flowers.” The peony is prized as national beauty and heavenly fragrance, with aristocratic distinction; its nobility is self-evident and widely known. Peonies are also not easy to grow, especially when propagated by planting, which is troublesome and has a relatively low survival rate. What characteristics does such a precious peony have? I think everyone is looking forward to knowing, so below we introduce the characteristics of peonies.

Characteristics of the peony's morphological features

The peony is a deciduous small shrub, so its plant form is small. This plant grows slowly, with plant height mostly between 0.5 and 2 m; the roots are fleshy, thick and long, with a lignified center, generally 0.5 to 0.8 m in length, and in very few cases the roots can reach 2 m; the color of the root bark and root flesh varies by variety; the branches are upright and brittle, round, and several branches grow in a clump from the root crown to form a shrubby shape. Current-year branches are smooth, herbaceous, yellow-brown, and often split open and peel off; the leaves are alternate, and the leaf blades are usually bipinnately trifoliolate, while the upper part of the branch often has simple leaves. The leaflets are lanceolate, ovate, elliptical, and other shapes; the terminal leaflet is often 2- to 3-lobed; the upper surface of the leaf is dark green or yellow-green, and the lower surface is gray-green, smooth or hairy; the common petiole is 8 to 20 cm long, with a groove on the surface.

Peony flowers are borne singly at the top of the current-year branch and are bisexual flowers, large in size, brilliant in color, beautiful and varied in form, with a flower diameter of 10 to 30 cm. The colors of peony flowers include ten major color groups: white, yellow, pink, red, purplish red, purple, dark purple), snow blue, green, and variegated; the stamens and pistils often show petalody. The so-called petalody refers to the phenomenon in which complex changes occur under the influence of some special environmental condition, causing the stigma and filaments to become longer and wider and take on a petal-like form. The natural increase in petals and the degree of petalody of the stamens and pistils are related to the variety, cultivation environmental conditions, growth years, and so on.

Normal peony flowers have many stamens, strong seed-setting ability, and relatively high seed maturity. In flowers with severe pistil petalody, few seeds are set and they are empty, or no seeds are set. In complete flowers, the stamens are free, and the carpels are generally 5, rarely 8, each with a bottle-shaped ovary of one locule, marginal placentation, and many ovules; the follicle is five-angled, and each fruit angle sets 7 to 13 seeds. The seeds are roundish, yellow when mature, and turn dark brown when old; mature seeds are 0.6 to 0.9 cm in diameter, with a thousand-grain weight of about 400 g.

Characteristics of the peony's growth habits

The peony is a plant that greatly prefers a warm, dry environment with relatively sufficient sunlight. However, as a national flower, the peony is also very strong in cold resistance and drought resistance. But what I am talking about is only drought resistance; strong direct sunlight is very bad for peonies. Another point is that during the growth process of peonies, the soil must not accumulate too much water. For it, a loose, deep, and fertile soil is the best environment for its growth. Relatively speaking, the high temperature and highly humid weather of the south are not very good for the growth of peonies, and beautiful peony flowers can only be appreciated under specific conditions.

Characteristics of the peony's uses

Everyone is surely very familiar with its ornamental uses, so here I will focus on introducing its characteristics for food and medicinal use. In many places there is a custom of using peony petals as various color-matching dishes, and peonies can also be used to steam wine, which has a very fragrant taste. Not only that, using peony bark as medicine can also achieve effects such as clearing heat and cooling blood and relieving pain in medicine, but pregnant women still need to use it with caution.