Each study-tour is a unique mission of inquiry. We do not cynically repeat a formula till all life has drained from it. 

It is a delight to us that many people who join one study-tour turn around and sign up for another. Indeed, some members join us every time! 

PLEASE JOIN US FOR: 

Lilies of China 2008 is now in the works. If you are interested in coming along, please email us.  

Peonies of China. Our April 2004 study-tour was so wonderful (and we learned so much!) that it became a three-year series, led each time by our friend Dr. James W. (Jim) Waddick, the American botanist and peony expert. 

• Peonies of China 2004. This 15-day study-tour in April began with a lecture on Peonies of the World by the foremost authority on Paeonia, our friend Dr. Hong Deyuan, who is also China's chief botanist. We met many other peony experts and growers, visiting several botanical gardens and the peony festivals in Heze and Luoyang. We also saw Paeonia jishanensis in the wild. We feasted on delicious local specialties, held several banquets, visited many important cultural sites and took a breather amid the picture-book hills of Zhangjiajie, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The itinerary is still posted. You may view it here. Members of the 2004 study-tour requested another one in 2006, picking up where the first one left off. 

• Peonies of China 2005.  This 15-day study-tour in April-May focused on Ziban mudan: Paeonia rockii and its cultivars. We began in Beijing with a lecture by the foremost expert on ziban mudan, our friend Cheng Fangyun, whose important book, Chinese Flare Mudan, was hot off the press. Travelling from Beijing to Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, we saw more tree-peony cultivars than we had dreamed possible, saw for ourselves which nurseries keep track of their cultivars by grafting and tidy rows, and which grow any old seedling, then rogue to description (or not). We saw P. rockii blooming in the wild on Taibaishan, saw the perfumed ziban mudan special to certain parts of Gansu, and even visited the remote lamasery at Jone where Joseph Rock found P. rockii in the 1920s. We experienced the rich Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist cultures of China at first hand and hobnobbed with peony experts high and low. Again we feasted on delicious local specialties, held several banquets and visited many important cultural sites, including the Silk Road grottoes at Longmen and Maijishan. We didn't have time to post the itinerary on our website; it made us very happy that people signed up anyway! 

• Peonies of China 2006. This study-tour from May 6-24, 2006, prepared at the request of the 2004 group, focused on species peonies in the wild. Starting in Beijing, we stopped briefly in Gansu Province, then continued west through Sichuan Province into Tibet (Xizang). As before, eminent authorities gave us lectures and accompanied us to wild peony sites where foreigners are not normally allowed to go. We also visited important cultural sites and, as usual, sampled delicious local foods. The itinerary is still posted here. 

• More peonies study-tours.  Peonies of the Mediterranean and Peonies of the Caucasus are in the works. So many peony-lovers have asked about another cycle of the China series that we are considering it. But for our sake, as well as yours, if the series does go on, nothing will be precisely repeated. Cookie cutters are fine for cookies, but learning starts anew each day.

Expeditions being planned  include:

IN CHINA: Orchids of China; Lilies of China

IN JAPAN: Wildflowers of Japan

IN EUROPE, ASIA and NORTH AFRICA: Peonies of the Mediterranean, Peonies of the Caucasus. 

IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA: the Queen Charlotte Islands; Kyuquot Sound.

IN THE UNITED STATES: Eriogonums (Wild buckwheats), with Dr. James L. (Jim) Reveal.