Luoyang mudan ji 洛陽牡丹記 and other books on peonies

Luoyang mudan ji 洛陽牡丹記 "Peonies of Luoyang" is a treatise on peonies written during the early Song period 宋 (960-1279) by the famous scholar Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007-1072). It is the earliest Chinese description of garden flowers at all. In older treatises on medical herbs, like Shen Nong bencao jing 神農本草經, peonies were still treated as medical, and not as decorative plants. It is documented that Emperor Yang 隋煬帝 (r. 604-617) of the Sui dynasty 隋 (581-618) had his gardens decorated with different kinds of peonies. The capitals Chang'an 長安 (modern Xi'an 西安, Shaanxi) and Luoyang 洛陽 (modern Luoyang, Henan) thereafter became important centres of peony cultivation.

Ouyang Xiu occupied high positions in the central government and was a renowned historian, writer and poet. His great interest in birds and plants is reflected in many of his poems. The book Luoyang mudan ji is relatively short and divided into three chapters. The first chapter (Hua pinxu 花品敘) explains the places where 24 types of peonies grow and why the peonies of Luoyang were of extraordinary quality, in contrast to those of other places. The second chapter (Hua shiming 花釋名) provides details about all types of peonies and explains their names, colours and individual features. The last chapter (Fengsu ji 風俗記) says that in Luoyang all persons of high and low standing used to cultivate and admire this plant. It explains how flowers were, after cutting, preserved and sent to friends and colleagues as presents and gives advice on how to propagate and cultivate the peony plant and how to irrigate and to nourish it in order to produce the most admirable flowers. The last section describes how certain parts of the plant could be used as medicine.

Peonies were originally wild plants (shanmudan 山牡丹 "mountain peonies") originating in China's barren northwestern region of Shaanxi. Ouyang Xiu also describes the appearance of these wild plants, looked totally different from the later known garden plants.

The language of Ouyang Xiu's Luoyang mudan ji is very poetic and of high quality. It therefore attracted the attention of later scholars who expanded the description, like Zhou Shihou 周師厚 (1031-1087), who finished a book with the same title in 1082. To discern it from Ouyang's book, it was called (Yinjiang Zhoushi) Luoyang mudan ji (鄞江周氏)洛陽牡丹記 "The peonies of Luoyang by Master Zhou from Yinjiang". Similar books were written by Zhang Bangji 張邦基 (fl. 1131, Chenzhou mudan ji 陳州牡丹記), Lu You 陸游 (1125-1210, Tianpeng mudan ji 天彭牡丹記), Qiu Daoyuan 丘道源 (jinshi degree 1127, Mudan rongru zhi 牡丹榮辱志) from the Song period, as well as Xia Zhichen 夏之臣 (jinshi degree 1583, Ping Bozhou mudan 評亳州牡丹), Xue Fengxiang 薛鳳翔 (fl. 1600, Bozhou mudan shi 亳州牡丹史) from the Ming period 明 (1368-1644), and Niu Xiu 鈕琇 (1644-1704, Bozhou mudan shu 亳州牡丹述) and Yu Pengnian 余彭年 (fl. 1792, Caozhou mudan pu 曹州牡丹譜) from the Qing period 清 (1644-1911).

The Luoyang mudan ji is included in the collected works of Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Wenzhong gong quanji 歐陽文忠公全集. The most important facsimile prints are to be found in the series Baichuan xuehai 百川學海, Shanju zazhi 山居雜志, Shuofu 說郛, Mohai jinhu 墨海金壺, Zhucong bielu 珠叢別錄, Biyu conglu 筆餘叢錄, Yunzizaikan congshu 雲自在龕叢書, Yipu souqi 藝圃搜奇, Qunfang qingwan 羣芳清玩, Xiangyan congshu 香艷叢書, and many others. It is included in the imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書, Guoxue zhenben wenku 國學珍本文庫 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編 .