The glorious peony commemorates Paeon (also spelled Paean and Paian), physician to the gods of ancient Greece on Mount Olympus, synonymous with Asclepius the god of healing.
This is our peony, a perennial herbaceous plant from southern Europe, other species being found in Asia and the west of North America, from the family Paeoniaceae. It has long been used in herbal medicines; Theophrastus (370-287 BCE) ridiculed the belief that if one dug it up in the day and was observed by a woodpecker, then blindness or anal prolapse would result. Dioscorides (70 CE) used it for uterine disorders, jaundice, kidney disease, cystitis and stomach problems.
The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy in children by Galen (circa 200 AD) – ‘the Spirits thereof drawn into the pores by the inward heate and outward aire, pierced the places effected by the disease and cured it’ (Parkinson, 1640). Matthiolus in Italy in1569 thought that the ancient Greeks must have had a different peony from the one available to him as neither he nor his colleagues found it effective. It disappeared from European practice thereafter although Elizabeth Blackwell, in 1737, recommended it for febrile fits in teething children (which stop whatever one does).
All parts of the plant are poisonous, although the petals are used to improve the colour of herbal teas, excessive use causes diarrhoea and vomiting.
