Author:
Qjure
Book:
Qjurious
Type:
Info
Chapter:
3-652.15.00
Paeoniaceae
English: Peonies.
Name: form the Greek, the God Pan.
Genera: Paeonia, ± 30 species, 33.
Region: Asia, Europe, Western North America.
Culture: Paeonia was a kingdom in the region of North Macedonia; Paeonia is an alternate name of Paeonidae, a demon of ancient Attica; Paeonia is an asteroid.
Content: paeoniflorin!; paeonol!; monoterpenoid glucosides, flavonoids, tannins, stilbenoids, triterpenoids, steroids, paeonols, phenols; ellagic acid, myricetin, ethereal oils, flavones, calcium oxalate; palmitone.
Culture: symbols of richness, healing, beauty, fulfilled love.
Use: ornamental.
Botany
Herbs perennial to deciduous shrubs; 40 to 100 cm, up to 3 m high; sensitive to root disturbance.
Roots: thick storage roots; thin roots for gathering water and minerals.
Leaves: compound, deeply lobed; large; deciduous; without glands and stipules; with anomocytic stomata.
Inflorescence: single flowers at the end of stems.
Flowers: showy; bisexual; fragrant; large, to 14 cm in diameter; purple red to white or yellow; subtended by a number of bracts, forming an involucre; flowering late spring and early summer.
Sepals: 3 to 7; tough; free.
Petals: 5 to 8, up to 13; free.
Stamens: numerous, 50 to 160; free; anthers sagittate, fixed at their base, open with longitudal slits at the outer side.
Pollen: free grains; 3 slits or pores; consist of two cells.
Carpels: 3, 1 to 15; lobed disc, without nectar; separate; very short style;decurrent stigma.
Fruit: dry, follicle; opens with a lengthwise suture; with one to many large fleshy seeds.
Taxonomy
Paeoniaceae were formerly placed in Ranunculaceae, with an assumed connection to Glacidium. Later on Paeoniaceae were placed under the Dilleniidae. In the Apg3 classification it is placed in Saxifragales.
Plant theory
In the Plant theory Paeoniaceae are in Subphase 5 of the Saxifragales. In the first version they were placed in Subphase 1. But the full blooded quality of Haemorrhoids and varicose veins fits better Phase 5.
Clades
Clades: Moutan, Onaepia, Paeoniae.
Onaepia: North America, P. brownii, P. californicum.
Moutan: Delavayanae, Vaginatae.
Delavayanae: P. delavayi, P. ludlowii.
Vaginatae: P. catayana, P. decomposita, P. jishanensis, P. osti, P. qiui and P. rockii
P. suffruticosa is a cultivated hybrid swarm.