As an avid grower of peonies, I would like to add my thanks to those of other members for Jim's super overview of the genus, as well as his detailed pieces on the nooks and crannies. I live in one of the colder corners of England (towards the south, but a long way from the warming effects of the gulf stream. So, I am by no means in a Mediterranean area! This means that I have few problems in growing any of the species (or their derivatives) that come from the temperate and wilder regions. However, so long as I am reasonably careful in placing them, I have few problems in growing the Mediterranean ones as well. Indeed, I have most of the ones Jim has mentioned growing here, often several collections of them My problems come from two sources with peonies. Firstly, I find it hard to keep the American species, P. brownii and californica, through the winter. The ground freezes hard at times and they simply don't like it. Also, I feel that they may be closer to acid lovers than the rest, which tend in the opposite direction. In any event, I find them very difficult and don't know of anyone currently growing them here, even though I am sure there must be more than one. The other problem is P. emodi. Whilst it comes from a cold place, like many plants from the Sino-himalayan flora, it expects Spring to mean Spring! That is, when the frosts stop, it expects them not to start again till the following winter. That is not a situation we are used to in the UK. Frosts sometimes stop in January/February and then come again in May where I live. Indeed, we had a night only last week where temperatures dropped to two degrees centigrade and there was a brief frost two week before. The result is that P. emodi starts leafing up for the next year, is hit by a frost and is defoliated. This weakens it and it often goes through the cycle again in the same season. The result, only too easily, is death! I have lost three in this way over the past five years. Today, I have two, one in a pot, and the other came through last winter, but only just: I had to keep a close eye on it each and every day from New Year onwards to get it though. I will raise one issue about Jim's note, as it touches on another of my interests. The latest report on angiosperm phylogeny (recently mentioned here), APGII, places Paeoniaceae in Saxifragales in Core Eudicots, but Ranunculaceae in Ranunculales in Eudicots. There always has been some doubt about where Paeoniaceae fitted in with everything else, but this is a dramatic move. Any comments, Jim? In the meantime, many thanks again for your efforts. Best regards, David Victor