Nobody in the group would heve believed, that after the slope with the hundreds of scattered flowering tree peonies there would be a chance to get more excited. Just – right after lunch we crossed in a small village the river over a provisional bridge, went up a few meters, and Prof. Hong showed us some first shrubs. The more we went up, the more and larger shrubs appeared. The majority of the shrubs was standing freely without companions, because the grassings cows kept everything short – just not the peonies. They seem not to be tasteful. It looked like a large nursery plantation, hundreds of well-shaped large shrubs of Paeonia decomposita subsp. decomposita. All in flower, some more than 2 meters high. Opening medium rose, paling out to very light rose color.
Species: Paeonia decomposita subsp. decomposita
Location: N-W Sichuan, near Maerkang, A Di Chun
Altitude: 2300m
Size of natural population: hundreds, maybe some thousand plants
