Intersectional hybrids are the newest peony hybrids. They are created by crossing peonies from one section with peonies from
another section of the genus. Thus the name inter-sectional hybrids. For generations, such crosses were believed to be impossible.
Professor A. P. Saunders (1869-1953), America's greatest peony hybridizer, considered this cross "the impossible dream".
Although he had succeeded at crossing "just about everything with everything else" in the peony world, he assigned
top place among the failures to the attempt to cross the tree peonies with the herbaceous type. Scores of others also had
tried and failed over the past several hundred years. Then, after centuries of failure, somehow the seemingly impossible
had happened. A Japanese nurseryman, Tochi Ito, succeeded in producing 4 herbaceous plants with large bright yellow double
flowers. These extraordinary plants were the result a cross of a white herbaceous peony, Kakoden, with the beautiful bright
yellow lutea hybrid tree peony, Alice Harding. These plants were discovered and imported into the US by Louis Smirnow of Long
Island, NY in the late 1960's. They were sold and distributed under the names, Yellow Crown, Yellow Dream Yellow Emperor,
and Yellow Heaven. These plants are available today from several commercial sources.
If you are interested in learning more about intersectional peonies or seeing more examples of intersectional hybrids,
you might want to check out my other web site which is devoted to intersectional hybrid peonies. The web address is intersectionalpeonies.com
Click below for a link to this site.
intersectionalpeonies.com
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A typical yellow intersectional hybrid peony.
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