The “Memorial Day Peony” was originally any of the forms of the then-widely grown European medicinal peony, P. officinalis. With the rapid spread of new selections of the ‘Chinese’ peony (P. lactiflora), many of which were extolled by Dr. Upjohn and his peers, the “peonies” of Memorial Day became any of the older historic varieties seen in the UM Peony Garden
