''Paeonia daurica'' subsp. ''wittmanniana'', also known as Wittmann's peony, is a

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

peony The peony or paeony is a flowering plant in the genus ''Paeonia'' , the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae . Peonies are native to Asia, Europe and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguished, ...

native to the southern

Transcaucasian The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

region. It was formerly regarded as a separate

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

, ''Paeonia wittmanniana'', but in 2002, the Chinese botanist Hong Deyuan reduced it to a subspecies of '' Paeonia daurica''. It is closely related to another subspecies of ''P. daurica'', ''P. daurica'' subsp. ''mlokosewitschii''. ''Paeonia daurica'' subsp. ''wittmanniana'' is up to 1.5 m tall. Above the plant is glabrous and dark green; below it is lighter green, glaucescent, with white hairs especially crowded along the veins, and the lower leaves are

biternate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

. Yellow to white flowers, 10–13 cm across, appear from April to June. The filaments are red and up to 1 cm long and the anthers are yellow to orange. The stamens are around 22 mm long. The divided leaf segments are

ovate Ovate may refer to: *Ovate (egg-shaped) leaves, tepals, or other botanical parts *Ovate, a type of prehistoric stone hand axe *Ovates, one of three ranks of membership in the Welsh Gorsedd *Vates In modern English, the nouns vates () and ovat ...

, cuneate, and often are oblique and abruptly cut off at the base.

References

*Waddick, James, Josef Halda. ''The genus Paeonia'', 2004. *Rogers, Alan. ''Peonies'', 2004. daurica subsp. wittmanniana Plant subspecies {{Saxifragales-stub