Dian Mu Dan (Paeonia delavayi)
Description
Paeonia delavayi is a low woody shrub belonging to the peonies, that is endemic to China. The vernacular name in China is 滇牡丹 (dian mu dan), which means "Yunnan peony". In English it is sometimes called Delavay's tree peony. It mostly has red brown to yellow, nodding flowers from mid May to mid June. The light green, delicate looking deciduous leaves consist of many segments, and are alternately arranged on new growth. Paeonia delavayi is a deciduous hairless shrub of --1- m high. Plants have creeping stolons and the roots are thick because they are fused together. It mainly reproduces by growing into large clones like this. Young twigs are light green, or tinged purple, rarely branching, erect, generally on top of perennial, stick-like, grayish to light brown stems. In lower plants, woody parts may not be present above ground. Like all diploid peonies, it has ten chromosomes (2n=10). The leaves are arranged alternately around the stem. In the lower leaves the leaf stalk is 10–15 cm long and the leaf blade is oval in outline, 15–30 cm long and 10–22 cm wide, twice compounded or very deeply incised, first into three to eleven leaflets, themselves deeply divided or lobed into two to eleven secondary lobes (this is called biternate). These are linear to linear-lanceolate in shape and have an entire margin or incidentally may have a few teeth. Usually each lower leaf has between twenty five and one hundred segments (full range 17 to 312). The width of the leaf segments is ½-2¾ cm. Higher along the stem leaves becoming smaller with fewer leaflets and segments.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Saxifragales
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Family: Paeoniaceae
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Genus: Paeonia
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