Paeoniaceae

Abstract

Perennial herbs, halfshrubs or shrubs with herbaceous or woody stems, usually branched from cataphylls; rhizome and roots thickened, napiform or bulbous.Leaves large, deciduous, alternate, ternately or pinnately compound or dissected, petioles dilated at base, leaflets entire, 3-5-lobed to -parted, or dissected into linear segments, cuneate to rounded at base, with entire margin, with petiolules, often glaucous beneath; stipules 0. Flowers large, solitary, terminal on main axis or branches, actinomorphic, hermaphroditic, hypogynous, opening nearly flat, rarely connivent; receptacle more or less concave, preceded by 2-6 hypsophylls, the latter sometimes grading into sepals by shortening of internodes; sepals 3-5 or more, green, free, often reflexed, (herbaceous-) coriaceous,persistent; petals 5-10(-13), free, caducous, larger than or sometimes nearly as long as sepals, red, pink, white, sometimes yellow; stamens numerous; anthers dithecal, yellow, lateral, linear to elliptic-linear, opening lengthwise, connectives not projecting; filaments filiform; disk intrastaminal, membranaceous, coriaceous or fleshy, not nectariferous; carpels 2-8(-15), distinct, obliquely bottle-shaped, thick-walled; stylodia short, stigmas more or less circinate outside; ovules anatropous, with very thick integuments. Follicles thick-walled.Seeds purple-black to black, sometimes interspersed with sterile red “lure” seeds; endosperm copious.Flowering in spring to early summer, fruiting in summer to autumn.