In 1903 Camille A. Jordan published the third and last volume of Icones ad Floram Europae novo Fundamento instaurandum spectantes by Alexis Jordan (1814-1897) and Jules Fourreau (1844-1870), the publication of which had been interrupted by the death of Fourreau in the Franco-German War. This volume contains descriptions by Alexis Jordan and coloured plates by C. Delonne of six peonies native to France and Corsica. Jordan was a strongly religious botanist and horticulturist with a keen observant eve for minute differences among closely allied plants and hence an extremely narrow species concept, for he disbelieved in evolution and, on the contrary, believed that these microspecies or forms had been so created by God and had ever after retained their characters unchanged. Their distinction necessitated the publication of scrupulously accurate and detailed illustrations. The six beautiful plates of Paeonia in Jordan and Fourreau’s Icones (3: 37-38, tt. 318-323; 1903) rank botanically as the best ever published for their wealth of detail. Jordan's P. glabrescens and P. revelieri both from Corsica are now included in P. mascula subsp. russi; his P. leiocarpa and P. modesta both from Pyrenees Orientales in P. officinalis subsp. humilis; his P. monticola and P. villarsii both from Hautes-Alpes in P. officinalis subsp. officinalis. The value of this work as regards Paeonia is accordingly in the high quality of its illustrations. Paeonia mascula subsp. russi has its most eastern stations in western Greece; Jordan's illustrations portray it from the western extreme of its range (plate 2).

From the book:

Peonies of Greece

A taxonomic and historical Survey of the Genus Paeonia in Greece

William T. Stearn and Peter H. Davis