Peony is a condiment in the past.

Peonies fade and peonies bloom, which is the time when the two seasons alternate. The peony, which says "the spring colors of the year are gone, and I look for Yao Huang and Wei Zi again", indicates the end of spring, while the peony, which says "the road in Yangzhou in late spring and early summer, the first try of heavy makeup is goose red", is regarded as a symbol of the arrival of early summer. The alternation of the flowering periods of the two has become a sign of the turn of spring and summer.

Herbal peony｜Daderot / wiki commons

Peony and Chinese peony are flowers that people often mention together. Peony is the king of flowers, while Chinese peony is the flower of flowers. The flowers and shapes of the two ornamental plants are similar, but peony is a woody plant, while Chinese peony is a herbaceous plant that withers and blooms once a year. Before the Tang Dynasty, peony did not refer to the flower of wealth and honor that we see today, while Chinese peony has been regarded as the flower of love for thousands of years. If it had not been transplanted from the Zhongxiang Temple in Xihe, Wu Zetian's hometown, I am afraid that peony would only be regarded as "wood peony".

Woody Peony｜Shin Kai / wiki commons

Peony, once a seasoning?

Peony has been recorded in ancient books very early. "The man and the woman teased each other and gave each other peonies as gifts." In the pre-Qin Dynasty, lovers on the banks of the Qin and Wei rivers expressed their love to each other. When they were about to leave, they gave peonies as gifts to express their feelings. Therefore, peony was named "Jiangli".

Ancient people believed that peony was the first flower to be named, and it was praised during the "Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou)". Unlike "orchid", "osmanthus", "magnolia" and other famous trees and flowers recorded in pre-Qin classics, the name "peony" did not fall on other plants as history changed. Flowers have bloomed and fallen for thousands of years, but the name of peony has never changed.

Peonies and peonies belong to the same genus, and botanists can tell the difference from their pistils, but ordinary people don't need to remember. Pictured is the peony variety 'Jan Van Leeuwen', with the peony visible when you slide it (with the pistil circled) | Geograph; Dalgial / wiki commons

The ancients cherished words like gold. "Peony" is a rare two-character word in ancient times. In the philology of literati of all dynasties, it is an object that people are happy to examine and explain.

Li Shizhen said that peony got its name from "Chouyue": "Peony is the same as Chuoyue. Chuoyue means beautiful appearance. The flower of this grass looks Chuoyue, so it is named after it." However, the Ming Dynasty where Li Shizhen lived was 2,000 years away from the Pre-Qin Dynasty, and only talking about the shape of the character may be a case of literal interpretation.

Peony flowers come in many shapes and colors｜Ting Chen/ flickr

In the "Zixu Fu" of the Han Dynasty, there is "the harmony of Shaoyao, and then it can be controlled". The "Shaoyao" here means the harmony of five flavors. Whether it is related to the peony flower we are talking about is quite controversial: Wen Ying of the Eastern Han Dynasty explained that "Shaoyao" is a prepared seasoning, and its raw materials have various flavors; in the Tang Dynasty, Yan Shigu supported that "Shaoyao" is the name of herb, which can be added to food as a seasoning, thus extended to the meaning of seasoning; Luo Yuan of the Song Dynasty explained "Peony" as "For controlling food poison, nothing is better than Shao, so it gets the name of the medicine."

From this point of view, there is an inextricable connection between "peony" and "shaoyao", "shao" means to blend and "yao" refers to seasoning.

Peony root slices | Monterey Bay Spice Company

Japanese scholar Masao Aoki wrote an article titled "The Harmony of Peony" to verify the connection between the two. He said that when cooking horse offal today, the rhizome of peony is still used as a seasoning to eliminate odor and adjust the taste. This ancient method forces us to rethink the function of peony in ancient times. It is not only a token of affection between lovers, nor is it just a herb in the medicine box. In the pre-Qin period, it was probably closely related to our diet. No wonder the ancients valued it. So the origin of the name "peony" has become clearer and clearer.

Peonies from the dining table into the garden

Nowadays, peony is no longer used as a seasoning, but is grown in gardens for viewing or in the fields as a medicinal herb. On my way back home in May, the high-speed train passed through fields of blooming peony flowers, which made me feel very close to them. Those pink, white and red flowers are announcing the arrival of summer.

Peony odoratum var. 'Pink Hawaiian Coral' ｜FD Richards / wiki commons

The Chinese have been cultivating peonies for a long time. First, pink and red varieties were selected from the original white peonies. In the Tang Dynasty, double-petaled peonies were also cultivated and became the darlings of the country together with peonies. Peony cultivation was the most prosperous in the Song Dynasty. In Yangzhou, the center of peony cultivation, people once held a flower-viewing festival to select beautiful peonies.

A close look at the flowers of the double cultivar 'Pink Hawaiian Coral' | Charvex / wiki commons

The beauty of peony is not only loved by Chinese people, but also by Europeans. Through the Silk Road, Chinese peony was introduced to Europe very early. At first, Europeans also used peony as a seasoning for meat cooking. Later, peony began to enter the garden, and hybridized with other native European peony species to form many beautiful garden varieties. Most of these peonies have single petals and bloom relatively early.

White single 'White Wings' and white double 'Barrington Bride' peony｜Ulf Eliasson & Charvex / wiki commons

In the late Qing Dynasty, white and pink double-petaled peonies and peonies from China arrived in Europe by ship. Before they arrived, Europeans had seen images of them on porcelain and lacquerware from China, but they thought that such large and gorgeous flowers were the Chinese's fantasy. Only when they saw the real flowers did they realize that the Chinese paintings did not deceive them.

Unfortunately, peonies do not like dampness and coldness, and the craze for viewing peonies quickly cooled. However, peonies have become a popular flower in gardening and an excellent cut flower due to their strong adaptability.

Peonies painted by Italian artist Giuseppe Castiglione, Peonies in the Immortal Calyx and Eternal Spring

Peony plants are upright, with long branches and are resistant to transportation. After the Americans introduced peonies from Europe, they cultivated many cut flower varieties, and since then, peonies have become one of the most important flowers in the cut flower world.

Difficult breeding of peony

The prosperity of peony did not end here. Although cultivated peonies and peonies have rich flower colors, they lack bright yellow types (the discovery of large-flowered yellow peonies quickly solved the problem of peonies lacking yellow, but peonies did not have good yellow flowers). Moreover, as a herb, the large and heavy flowers make peonies easily droop and fall over, greatly reducing their ornamental value.

The huge flowers grow on fragile stems and are prone to falling over｜Salicyn / wiki commons

In order to solve the problem of lodging, Japanese Ito Toichi used the hybrid yellow peony "Jin Huang" and the white Japanese peony "Hua Xiangdian" to hybridize the famous "Ito Peony". The hybridization process of "Ito Peony" was extremely difficult, because the extreme incompatibility between peony and peony made the germination ability of the hybridized seeds extremely low. After thousands of sowings, only 36 seedlings survived; and from their offspring, four very representative yellow varieties were finally selected.

Today, 'Ito Peony' is the most popular horticultural variety of the genus Paeonia.

One of the four yellow varieties of Ito peony 'Yellow Crown'｜Captain-tucker

From a condiment to a medicine, and then to an ornamental flower that humans love, peony, a herb that once lingered on river banks, has become a cultural gem because of human love.

This plant, which grows wild on the fertile plains, has been with humans since prehistoric times. However, today, wild peonies on the plains have completely disappeared. Only on the grasslands where few people go, there are still large areas of peonies that look like fairyland, with large, pink and white flowers, graceful postures, quietly blooming.

Wild peonies in Inner Mongolia, it is rare to see such a scene today｜Yu Tianyi

I hope people will stop disturbing wild peonies and let them bloom in their last habitat.

Author: Amon

This article comes from the Species Calendar. Reposting is welcome, but reprinting is prohibited.

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