Peony Registry

F2, inbred Officinalis Otto Froebel (tetraploid)*. A huge bowl shaped flower with a brilliant penetrating coral color, which has a mild agreeable sheen. The color lightens to a pale cream as the golden center of stamen’s is approached. It is semi-double. The guards and second row of petals are large and have no undesirable petal notches. The petals become narrower and become gradually erect toward the center of the flower. The flower has unusual substance and is a free bloomer. Borne on 36 in. rigid stems, with good foliage. It is late “June 1st here” for a hybrid, and has real vigor. It had three blooms the first time it bloomed in 1S62, seven blooms the second year in 1963, and ten blooms in 1984. It has the stamina to stay in refrigeration for ten days at least and still do well. Seedling # 640.

Note: Awarded the American Peony Society’s Gold Medal in 1986.

Plant Patent Document Number US PP04247 P (1978-05-02) offers a discrepency in the given parentage for this cultivar:

My new variety of peony plant was discovered by me at Lombard, Ill., among a group of seedlings of (lactiflora) Minnie Shaylor .times. (lobata) Otto Froeber (both unpatented) resulting from a cross made by Samuel Wissing in the course of breeding efforts carried on since 1955 with the object of producing a plant combining the brilliant clear color of the species lobata with the strength and reliability of the species lactiflora. The color of this seedling attracted my attention and I promptly began propagation of this plant at Arlington Heights, Ill., by means of divisions and root cuttings. Successive generations of this new plant, produced by root division and root tip cuttings, have demonstrated that its distinctive features hold true from generation to generation and appear to be firmly fixed and this plant is now being grown for commercial exploitation at production farms at Barrington, Ill., and Champaign, Ill.