Paeonia brownii
Brown's Peony

Family: Paeoniaceae (Peony family)

Photo taken at Anderson Canyon, dry openly wooded hillside

Flowers:

flowers on short peduncles, tending not to open fully; 5 leathery sepals, greenish to purplish, 1 to 2 cm, persistent, unequal; 5 petals, 8 to 20 mm, equal or less than sepals, brownish in color to reddish purple, deciduous

Leaves:

fleshy and more or less leathery; glaucous, especially on the underside of leaves; ternate to biternately divided then divided again into lobes, tips of lobes rounded or obtuse, ultimate segments 3 to 10 mm broad

Plant:

perennial; glabrous and glaucous; 20 to 50 cm tall

Habitat:

sagebrush desert to ponderosa pine forest

Distribution of species:

east Cascades from British Columbia to California, east to Idaho, western Wyoming, Utah and Nevada

Distribution of genus:

more or less 30 species: Eurasia, 2 species in western U.S., many cultivated