The Crosses of A. P. Saunders

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Important note: many forms included in Saunders' lifetime into the group of P. officinalis - cultivars or forms are now grouped together with P. peregrina ('Otto Froebel', 'Sunbeam', lobata)

„We come now to a group,of hybrids which seem to promise better practical results than any other. These are the hybrids between sinensis and officinalis. I was able to stage a small exhibit of these at the peony show in Philadelphia last year, but that exhibit did not do anything like justice to the plants as they developed later in the garden. I gladly pay tribute here to my friend Mr. Lyman D. Glasscock of Joliet, Illinois, who I understand staged a bloom of similar parentage at the peony show in Des Moines a year earlier. I am sorry that I was not at that exhibition in order to see the first results of his cross-fertilization between these two groups on which he also has been working for some years past.

A curious fact regarding these hybrids is that they carry a great deal of the officinalis character regardless of the direction in which the cross is made. I have four plants, the results of a cross of a single officinalis variety on the single white Albiflora the Bride. These plants are worth describing their blooms are all of a most brilliant crimson color, approximately that of officinalis rubra plena, though in some a shade darker in tone. They are very large, running up to seven inches in diameter, and look like enormous single officinalis blooms. The foliage is also very large, and of the character of officinalis. But stature and habit show the influence of the Chinese blood. The plants do not have the dwarf, sprawling habit of the officinalis varieties, but are tall, erect, and up-standing. The blooms are usually durable for single flowers. These plants were divided last autumn for the first time, and the root growth seemed to be intermediate between that of officinalis and sinensis. It may therefore turn out that the plants will divide better than the officinalis varieties usually do. If it should be so, and if the plants maintain the quality they have so far shown they should be welcome additions to the meager list of really fine early flowering peonies. I have several other groups of similar parentage already at or near the blooming age, and some of them have already shown good promise. Crosses made with sinensis pollen on officinalis rubra plena show similar characteristics, but have a tendency towards the production of double flowered hybrids, one of which among the few that have so far bloomed is of a very brilliant scarlet crimson, and may be a good plant. I do not like to say too much about these plants. It seems like boasting about one's children before they are yet in their teens. It will be some years before they will have established their character to such an extent that one can feel confident about them..“ (SOME NEW HYBRID PEONIES , By A. P. Saunders, Clinton, New York in: American Peony Society Bulletin No. 27 — June 1926:)

see also:

New Strain of Hybrid Peonies

No. 34, June

1928