Thank you, Mary Sue, for your cautionary (and inspiring!) tale. I feel very lucky to have obtained P. cambessedesii and P. mascula from Ellen Hornig last year, just before she closed Seneca Hill. The former appears to be thriving in a pot after its first winter here in Oakland. I'd prefer not to talk about the latter. Two notes of interest at least to Californians on the list: 1. UC Botanic Garden has several fine examples of what appear to be the same taxon of tree peony, labelled T. suffruticosa, which was blooming spectacularly last week. The massive white flowers have purple basal blotches that I associate with P. rockii, but I do not pretend to have an opinion about tree peony taxonomy. I believe Kew published yet another monograph of Paeonia last year. The garden is in the Berkeley hills, and probably gets a more chilling hours than lower-lying areas, but I cannot say how many. 2. I have heard that a well-known Bay Area nursery frequently mentioned here is growing P. cambessedesii, though I do not know when it will be available. Best, Max Oakland CA