Abstract: The fresh pollen of Paeonia lutea was employed as experimental material to study the pollen viability. The effects of different concentration of sucrose, boron, calcium, magnesium and potassium on the germination of P. lutea's pollen were compared through simple factorial experiment. Based on these, the orthogonal design was used to compare the effects of sucrose, boron and calcium on the germination of P. lutea's pollen. Carmine acetate staining, I2-KI staining, and TTC staining were compared in order to seek for a fast determination method of P. lutea's pollen viability. The results showed that the sucrose and boron had great effects on the germination of P. lutea's pollen. Under the optimum pH 6.0 values, the optimum culture solution was sucrose 150 g·L-1 + H3BO3 30 mg·L-1 + CaCl2 20 mg·L-1, the germination rate was 68.7%. When cultured in pure water, the protoplasm of the pollen wouldn't split, and the substance inside wouldn't flow out, but its germination rate was very low. When cultured in the solution with high concentration of sucrose or salt, the protoplasm would dehydrate and separate from the cell wall. These two would inhibit the germination of P. lutea's pollen. And TTC staining showed that the viability rate was 64.9% which was the optimum staining for the fast determination of P. lutea's pollen viability.