Paeonia ostii Genome Project

Tree peony, known as the ‘king of flowers’, has been cultivated for approximately 2000 years in China. Paeonia. ostii (T. Hong et J. X. Zhang) is a medium-sized perennial shrub in the family of Paeoniaceae, native to central China, and its grand flowers have particular significance in culture and history. Current P. ostii ‘Fengdan’ is planted across hundred of thousands acres, providing great economic value; it is also the parental species of thousands of varieties of modern cultivated peony, P. suffruticosa. After eight years effort, the first chromosome-level genome sequence of tree peony P. ostii, which has the largest chromosome (> 12.28Gb)of any sequenced plant to date, has been successfully built. This project provides valuable data for better understanding the evolution and formation of plant giant genome and chromosome, and for tree peonies breeding and industries.