Peony Registry

Seedling TF-11. Parentage: P. tenuifolia ‘Plena’ x (P. tenuifolia ‘Plena’ x P. tenuifolia ‘Rosea’). First bloomed 2013, first propagated 2015. Fully double BOMB form. Deep red flowers are borne 1 to a stem, 4 inches (10 cm) in size, up facing. 3-4 carpels on average. Carpels green with reddish cast, slightly tomentose, sometimes deformed. Receptive part of stigmas white. Disc poorly developed. No pollen. As a pod parent normally fertile. Faint scent as typical of P. tenuifolia. Blooming time very early, together with P. tenuifolia ‘Plena’. Finely cut foliage is typical of the species. Nicely upright bush some 20 inches (50 cm) tall; support not needed. ‘Johann Szovits’ is an improvement on P. tenuifolia ‘Plena’ with high-built, long-lasting flowers and larger, more even and rounded petals. Named after the Slovak naturalist, explorer and plant hunter who was baptized on January 2, 1787 at Tarca, Kingdom of Hungary (now Torysa, Slovakia). Johann Nepomuk Szovits was graduated from Pest University and collected plants in the grassy steppes north of the Black Sea early in the 19th century when he was working as a pharmacist in Odessa. In January 1828, he embarked on an extensive expedition to Iran and Transcaucasia where he died from epidemic cholera near the city of Kutaisi (now Republic of Georgia) in August 1830. There is a note in the contemporary literature of that era that we owe to him, next to many other plants, the traditional double fernleaf peony P. tenuifolia ‘Plena’ which was first described in 1838. See L’Horticulteur universel: journal génèral des jardiniers et des amateurs, Vol. 4, page 274 (1843). Szovits is the Hungarian spelling of a Slavic name pronounced as “Sovich”.