And another plant ID please!

[didireallysaythat]

It breaks the ground in February every year having died down to nothing and flowers now for around a month or so. It's not a peony - those are about 10-15cm above ground at the same time in my (cold east) garden.

It’s a tree peony.

Peony. Mine are still tiny stalks.

Actually no, it is a peony, but more like the wild ones you see in Italy.

I've always called it a tree peony but do they come up 2 months earlier than peonies? The flowers are smaller and there aren't so many of them. Here's what a regular peony looks like right now

My tree peony already has buds on it, but it has a strong stalk and loses leaves, but doesn’t die back.

@Beebumble2 that's what I read which is why I didn't think it was a tree peony but I'm happy to be proved wrong. This one disappears completely. And comes up when nothing else in the garden is doing anything, earlier than any of the spring bulbs.

Could it be some kind of anemone? It's crazy early for a peony.

I’m now pretty sure it’s Peony Officinalis, which I’d related to the wild peony and is also known as Common Peony. It is the earliest flowering, usually in May. So you’ve got an early one.

It's a peony definitely, looks like common peony to me too

Could it be this? It's lovely whatever it is and I wish I had one randomly growing in my garden!
www.plant-world-seeds.com/store/view_seed_item/3632

I think it's a standard, albeit tiny, peony too.

My plant id app says peony obovata. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paeonia_obovata

Definitely not a tree peony. I have two tree peonies and they are more like a shrub/tree. They don't die back in winter and the flowers are enormous.

It does a lot like paeonia cambessedesii - description of early flowering makes sense. It's not as showy as a regular peony....

What it could be - if you originally had a tree peony, they are usually grafted on to a wild species for speed of propagation, and if the graft failed, you’d be left with the wild species.

I’ve deliberately allowed the suckers to grow on my father’s tree peony, so they’ve taken over, and I just have single pink flowers with yellow stamens, not the pink football sized cabbage like monstrosities that he used to get.

@MereDintofPandiculation

That makes sense. The flowers opened a day or two and already the petal look ready to fall off. I can't remember when I cut them down to the ground - I think usually October. I love when the start peaking up in Feb when the rest of the garden is asleep.

Do you know if they can be divided, and fig so when?