Many years ago I got my first plants of P. caucasica grown from seeds I had received from Will McLewin (UK). One of the seedlings was different from all others. It flowered at the same time and had the same height, but there were more leaflets to a leaf (usually 11 instead of the 9 which is typical of P. caucasica) which were also somewhat shorter and wider. Either an unintended garden hybrid or really a special form. The flowers were also larger and the stems somewhat sturdier. I selected this one to propagate and use in hybridizing with the hope of obtaining good very early blooming plants. I have divided and replanted several times and have used it quite often to hybridize with since. However it seems to be intolerant to the standard hot water treatment which is given here agains leaf nematodes. So a few times I’ve lost all divided plants, but since I never propagate them all in one go once I have a few plants, it is not lost and I still have some 10 plants. Hybridizing with it was also not exactly straightforward. Huge amounts of pollen, but tried it on a whole lot of different peony varieties, without ever getting one single seed. As a seed parent the same thing. So after several years of trying I gave up on it. And then, one year, from open pollination I suddenly had a few dozen seeds, contrary to all those years giving me nothing.

I planted them obviously and the first ones have flowered just now. I hope they will have better fertility so that I can now actually cross them with other varieties. I quite like them, they all have the same amount of leaflets and better stems compared to the usual P. caucasica. I’m wondering whether the original, which I’ve garden named ‘Amirani’, is not a P. x lagodechiana hybrid (P. mlokosewitschii x P. caucasica). It also fades somewhat from dark pink towards paler whitish pink. The first two images show ‘Amirani’, the others are all children of it. The first child is a very attractive bicolored one, but I stripped the petals to take the pollen and cross with it. The others show some variety, only a few of them bloomed, shades of pink to red for now. There’s also one with more brownish leaflets as you can see, much like you have P. ruprechtiana with darker leaflets in the normal P. caucasica population.

All in all, I think there is promise amongst them being extremely early and easy to grow both in shade and sun, also for any amateur gardener. P. caucasica itself is easy and pretty enough (though not very commonly available), but I think this strain offers just a little more with better foliage, stronger stems and larger flowers on average. Now we’ll have to wait to see if they are more fertile or not.