Peonies have been known in England since at least the tenth century, and are possibly native. In 1629 the gardener John Parkinson remarked that they were valued ‘for the beauty and delight of their goodly flowers, as well as for their Physicall vertues [i.e. their medicinal properties]’. Marshal often recorded imperfect specimens, and here two dropped petals from the overblown tulip are depicted on the lower left of the sheet.