[1] Its vernacular name in Italian is peonia Corsa,[3] and in French pivoine de Corse,[4] both meaning "Corsican peony".

[3] This peony has grey to brown roots shaped like carrots, about 2 cm (0.79 in) in diameter near the attachment of the stems and gradually becoming narrower towards their tips.

It has stiff, erect, hairless, green to purple stems of 35–80 cm (14–31 in) high with five to seven scales at their base.

These have a wedged to round base, an entire margin, a pointy tip, a hairless upper surface and a variously but mostly densely softly-hairy undersurface.

[5] Each stem may carry a single hermaphrodite flower that may be subtended by none or up to three leaflet-like bracts that may form a kind of involucre.

A wavy disk of 1 mm (0.039 in) high with a toothed margin encircles the base of mostly two to five (rarely one or as much as eight) green, red or purple carpels.

There is approximately a three-month delay between the initial development of the root and that of the earliest part of the stem (or hypocotyl).

In 1837 Giuseppe Moris described a form from Sardinia and Corsica that differed in having a covering of soft hairs on the underside of the leaflets and on the carpels, calling it P. corallina var.

In 1899 Antoine Legrand described a form with hairless carpels but hairy undersides of the leaflets and called it P. russoi var.

russoi from the Ionian islands and the corresponding mainland coastal area he regarded identical to Bivona's taxon.

In 2001 Cesca found a form from Sardinia with purplish stems and long hairs on the leaflets' undersurfaces he regarded sufficiently different to create a new species, P. morisii, and it was recognised by Passalaqua and Bernardo in 2004, who also extended the range of P. mascula subsp.

[1][5] Specimens from Corsica, Sardinia and the Ionian isles were all shown to be diploids with ten chromosomes (2n=10), mostly have nine leaflets in the lower leaves, which often have rather hairy undersides with soft curved golden brown hairs of about 1½ mm (0.06 in) long on the carpels, although hairlessness also occurs.

The sampled populations from Sicily and Euboea however are all tetraploids (4n=20), mostly with ten to twenty leaflets in the basal leaves, not or sparsely hairy, while the light yellow hairs on the carpels are straight and rather bristly (or hispid) and about 3 mm (0.12 in) long.

It grows in pine and oak dominated forests, in maquis shrubland and on grassy places on various soils and bedrock (such as limestone, granite and metamorphic).

It is praised as a rather low peony, with shiny purple tinged young foliage, that is regarded suitable for sunny rock gardens.