Paeonia caucasica

Description

A beautiful woodland peony with usually reddish flowers (towards pink); in the wild plants with white and pure pink flowers also appear.
A good species to add to your collection of other woodland peonies (P. japonica, P. obovata…)

Opinions still differ regarding the naming of some peonies species, reason why it is always good to look at pictures of plants from their wild habitat (iNaturalist is a good place to start), compare and make your own judgment.

iNaturalist P. caucasica pictures from habitat: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/520922-Paeonia-caucasica/browse_photos

For those interested, this is a good article with information about peonies from Caucasus and Iran: https://www.peonysociety.eu/peonies-of-the-caucasus-and-iran/

Germination: sown any time but it needs a warm/moist period to form a root, followed by a cold/moist period for leaf emergence; depending on the sowing time it may take 2 years for a complete germination. It seems that this species will start forming roots at much lower temp. than other peonies, at around 10C. By sowing and keeping the pots outdoors, these means the roots will usually form in the fall (or early spring).