Home33 forum General discussion forum Wild peonies in western Alps?

2 voices
2 replies
  • Author
    Posts
    • #25747
      Allan
      Participant

      The Danish Peony Society will travel to NW Italy this spring and very much wishes to see wild Paeonia officinalis (my pictures shows subsp. officinalis) if possible. Does anyone know of exact places other than at La Borney? Only the dots on the map shown are known to us at present. Also The Portale della Flora d’Italia have forwarded my similar question to the authors of Piemonte and Valle D’Aosta checklists,  but to no avail yet.
      Any help or reference much appreciated:)
      Sincerely
      AllanDenmark

      Skærmbillede 2020-01-02 kl. 14.18.46_MG_1892officinalis_var_officinalis

    • #25748
      khurtekant
      Moderator

      I don’t have any precise locations myself as unfortunately I’m not living in that beautiful country. But that map is from a (long) article on peonies in Italy, “N. G. Passalacqua & L. Bernardo (2004) The genus Paeonia L. in Italy: taxonomic survey and revision, Webbia, 59:2, 215-268.” I suppose you have it, otherwise there would be no map, if not, contact me. The authors thereof have visited several locations where they grow naturally next to comparing herbarium collections. In the article those locations are more or less described (although in Italian), though rarely very precise. Perhaps if you can contact the authors they can tell you where to look? Perhaps they’ll invite you to their botanic garden where several officinalis peonies from different locations also grow. A quick search resulted in the following contact info:

      Passalacqua Nicodemo Giuseppe (Curatore Responsabile dell’Orto Botanico)
      e-mail: [email protected]
      phone: 0984/493112</p>

      Bernardo Liliana (Professore Associato presso il Dipartimento di Biologia, Ecologia e Scienze della Terra)
      [email protected]
      0984/493113

      Alternatively, there’s also a list in Hong De-Yuan’s book, but it’s not much different from the descriptive list in the aforementioned article. It usually shows where the herbarium samples were collected, but not very precise and with the collection date sometimes over a century ago, it can be expected that at some places they won’t be growing anymore and may instead flourish at other locations nowadays.

      Another possibility might be to join a specialized paeonia species group on facebook, chances are quite high that some members there will know where to go. Those groups are ‘private’, but simpy request membership and they’ll normally let you join. My favorites are:

      Paeonia species (only species): https://www.facebook.com/groups/308876929648849/
      Species paeonia group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/803441653152058/

      Hope this helps,

      All the best,

      koen

       

    • #25770
      Allan
      Participant

      Thank you very much, Koen. I think your research will help us very much indeed. I will now let our chairman in the Danish Peony Society take over to do exact arrangements. The American Peony Society also were a great help finding two other contacts.
      How very nice to have your website, which I think nobody knows in Denmark, except for Luriel. I will try to change that shortly:)
      You might want to have a look at our website, which has been renewed recently and therefor is still lacking some information and pictures. It is easily translated using Google Chrome:
      http://www.danskpaeonselskab.dk/
      Sincerely
      Allan

The forum ‘General discussion forum’ is closed to new topics and replies.

2023, The Peony Society - https://www.peonysociety.eu

Privacy Preference Center

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account