Canadian Peony Society: Newsletter

Newsletter

Paeonia Nordica
Canadian Peony Society Quarterly Newsletter

Excerpts from May 2010

President's Column by Blaine Marchand

As I sit here in Islamabad, it is a baking 34 degrees Celsius. I have just returned from a week in London, where it was 5 degrees with ever-falling rain. Last year the species peonies were in magnificent bloom. This year, the reddish pug noses of shoots were just emerging from the ground. Meanwhile via the Internet, CPS members tell me it is already summery in Canada. Their peonies are two or three weeks ahead of their normal growth. The weather is so unpredictable and so too are plants.

This makes me speculate about the display we are all longing to see at the Oshawa Botanical Garden, June 12 and 13, when we will hold our Annual General Meeting (AGM) and show. Judi Denny and her dedicated volunteers are hard at work and the show promises to be both informative and interesting.

Just as the weather changes with each season, any Society alters through its life cycle, taking on new things, adapting some, and leaving others behind.

As you know, a committee has revised the CPS Constitution and Bylaws, last done in 1999. The Board has passed these and they will now be brought forward at the AGM for the Society’s membership to ratify. These are critical documents, so we have mailed a copy of them to all members. Please read them.

Another committee has looked at the Gilbert Collection of peonies, to determine how to use it. Should it be used to make increased donations to public gardens? Should there be criteria for those who currently hold and will hold portions of the Collection? The progeny of the original peonies can be found in an impressive list of public gardens. The Society should be proud of the donations made from sea to sea and promote this role in making peonies more prominent in Canada. We should plan carefully for future donations.

Another activity of the Society is its 'Open Gardens' in different regions of the country. However, it has become difficult to recruit new participants willing to open their gardens. As Gladys Sykes from Saskatchewan has written, many who participated report "not one visitor has showed up". She continues: “The concept is a wonderful idea and I don't know why people are not taking advantage of it.” Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate this activity, to learn how it can be rejuvenated and attract the general public.

I look forward to meeting members at the AGM and Show in Oshawa. Until then, may all of your peonies flourish, no matter whether early or late.

Featured Article - The Peony As Medicinal Plant
by Roberta Woods

So enamoured are we today with the peony’s beauty and with its excellence as a garden plant that we tend to forget that, at one time, the peony was highly regarded as a medicinal herb. In fact, it is likely that rather than being grown as horticultural plants, peonies were first cultivated for their healing properties. One reminder of this earlier use is that peonies are named after Paeon, the ancient Greek healer whom Homer depicted as a physician to the gods. Another reminder is the name assigned to the plant known to us, today, as Paeonia officinalis. Literally, “officinalis” means from the office or, in present day terms, the shop where European herbalists sold their remedies. Practitioners in China and Japan also recognized the peony’s medicinal properties. In China these were probably known by 600 B.C. and certainly by the first century A.D. In the early eighth century A.D. the peony was taken, not for its horticultural properties but, rather, for its medicinal value, from China to Japan.

In Europe, the first peony to be utilized as a medicinal plant was Paeonia mascula or, the “male” peony, native to the Mediterranean. In the medieval period, P. mascula was introduced into Britain, probably by monks. Both John Gerard (1545-1611/12) and Nicholas Culpepper (1616-1654) referred to P. mascula in their herbals. However, by the sixteenth century, P. officinalis, also native to the Mediterranean, had been introduced into Britain and supplanted P.mascula as the peony of choice for medicinal purposes. In China and Japan, both herbaceous and tree peonies were grown as medicinal plants. In Europe, P. officinalis was grown by monks in their herb gardens; by physicians and apothecaries in their physic gardens; and by private individuals in their town and country gardens. And since in the medieval period, and later, the housewife was held responsible for the care of the sick, women would have been involved in the cultivation of peonies. In wealthy households, the housewife would have had a supervisory role but in more humble establishments, the women would have done the work themselves.

According to Culpepper, not all parts of the peony were equally efficacious as herbal remedies. He ranked the roots and seeds as the most valuable, the petals and leaves less so. The harvesting of the roots, however, was at one time considered dangerous. In ancient Greece, there was a prohibition against digging up the roots in daylight lest the activity be seen by a woodpecker which would peck out the eyes of the digger. Death was another danger associated with the digging of roots. The remedy for this hazard was to tie one end of a piece of string to the plant and the other to the leg of a dog. The dog could then be persuaded to pull up the plant with a lure of “roasted flesh” set at a distance. Gerard dismissed these ancient myths and said that the roots could be harvested at any time of the year. The harvest of seed was also considered worthy of an advisory note. Until Gerard dismissed the notion, peony seeds were believed to be invisible during daylight but could be collected at night because they shone like candles.

After harvesting, dried peony roots could be fashioned into amulets and beads, or ground into a powder. Powdered root was used both by itself and mixed with other ingredients to form medicinal powders or electuaries. The roots were also the basis of peony water. Culpepper’s recipe advised washing the roots, cutting them into small pieces and then, steeping them in sack (white wine) for at least twenty-four hours. Before use, the infusion was strained. A more elaborate recipe for peony water involved the use of eighteen freshly gathered peony roots, numerous seeds, leaves, and dried lavender flowers, all boiled together in several gallons of wine and water.

Remedies prepared from peonies were used in the treatment of a broad range of afflictions. From ancient Greek times until the nineteenth century, certain problems associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and the care of children could be alleviated with a peony preparation. Hippocrates recommended the ingestion of peony seeds for both “dropsy” and “dislocation” of the womb. Cessation of menstruation could be treated likewise. A seventeenth-century electuary was reputed to relieve what, today, we would describe as the nausea, vomiting, and unsettled stomach of early pregnancy. Expulsion of the placenta was assisted with an infusion of peony roots. To protect the newborn child from fits and the “falling evil”, an eighteenth-century German herbalist recommended bathing the infant with peony water made from boiling peony flowers in wine. Children also benefited from the protective powers conferred by peony root beads hung around their necks. In adults, lunacy, melancholy dreams, nightmares, dizziness, hysterical passion, jaundice, and blockage of the liver and kidneys were all amenable to treatment with a peony remedy.

The high regard for peony preparations lasted from ancient classical times until late in the nineteenth century. This longevity of use can be explained, in part, by the necessity of having to rely on one’s own medical resources. With the exception of city residents, very few people would have had access either to a physician or an apothecary. With the late nineteenth-century introduction and promotion of synthetic drugs, the use of herbs, including the peony, declined. Yet the peony’s reputation as a medicinal plant has not been entirely obliterated, for today Chinese medicine continues to utilize the peony in the preparation of medications.