There's two subspecies and the hybrid / intergrade between them:
Pinus mugo subsp. mugo
Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata (syn. Pinus uncinata; Pinus mugo var. rostrata)
Pinus mugo nothosubsp. rotundata (syn. Pinus pseudopumilio)

Resin

Hi Barbara, I can help you with thwe following info:

'Arabela' (#27)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Arabela'

'Baby' (#2)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Baby'

'Berhal' (#4)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Berhal'

'Ceasar'
Probably a misspelling for 'Cisar' (#885)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Cisar'

'Echiniformis WB'
= Pinus mugo 'Echiniformis'
This isn't a witchses' broom, but a seedling selection.

'Hnijdo'
Probably a misspelling for 'Hnizdo'.
The full name is Pinus rotundata 'Draci Hnizdo' (#1222)

'Karel' (#6)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Karel'

'Maja' (#26)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Maja'

'Niva' (#20)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Niva'

'Popelka' (#23)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Popelka'

'Snehuraka' (#22)
This is a misspelling for 'Snehurka' (#22)
= Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Snehurka'.

I hope I helped you with this info...

Just the guys I was hoping to hear from....thank you! Appreciate the additional numbers for those from the San Sebastian series too.

Which is the most proper terminology: Pinus mugo nothosubsp. rotundata or Pinus x pseudopumilio? It seems like every reference I look at has this group of pines listed slightly different, which makes it very confusing.

Here they are:

The witches'broom hunters from the Czech Republic are using the names which I mentione above...

Actually the #2 broom is 'Babay'. It was shortened by someone somewhere along the line.

Bob

Bob, this is not true, I checked at Mr. Malik's list.
He was one of the witches' broom hunters from the Czech Republic who found those brooms...

That is interesting because Jan Beran and Jaroslav Kazbal had both given me that spelling years ago and Jaroslav had sent an article to be published in the ACS Bulletin about finding the first San Sebastian brooms. Jaroslav is very fussy about correctness in the Czech cultivar names.

If Malik was involved in the first collection of brooms, then I am puzzled as to how the plant had the name shortened. I will have to check when I get home to verify that the article was published and which spelling was used. I have a copy of the article from Jaroslav that uses 'Baybay'. If it was published in the Bulletin as 'Baybay' and that was the first publication of its name, then that has to be the name regardless of how it shows in Malik's list since lists don't count as valid publications.

Bob

'Baybay' and 'Babay' don't give any results when searching by Google, 'Baby' does give some results.

Also the Holata Nursery from the Czech Republic' is using the cultivar name 'Baby'...

I made a typo. It is 'Babay' and I know it doesn't give any results because 'Baby' is the name in common use. I'll get back to this in a few days.

rotundata has nomenclatural priority over pseudopumilio, so is the correct name to use for the inter-subspecies hybrid.

Resin

While we're discussing this, I'll ask about one more. I have a small 'Xenie', so...is it Pinus uncinata or one of the others?

Also, Pinus uncinata, or Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata: which designation is currently preferred or accepted as correct?

Interesting thread and some nice new plants, Barbara.

Alex

This post was edited by maple_grove on Tue, Jun 11, 13 at 11:54

"Also, Pinus uncinata, or Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata: which designation is currently preferred or accepted as correct?"

Some prefer one, some prefer the other, it is a matter of botanical opinion. My preference is strongly for Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata.

Resin

I looked through my back issues of the ACS Bulletin and evidently Jaroslav's article was never published. So since 'Baby' appears to be the common usage and no prior publication of 'Babay' is around and it is only obscurely referred to in a letter, I'd agree to go with 'Baby' for this cultivar.

Bob

I've just been watching to see how this unfolds. It would be nice if the conifer community could come to an agreement and give these guys that are variously named as hybrid/species/subspecies/nothosubspecies (a hybrid at the subspecies level of a species) a single designation.

I'll be using Pinus mugo nothosubsp. rotundata as it is currently the most scientifically correct...the name is larger than the the plants are!
Barbara

There is the world of the taxonomists and there is the world of horticulture. They should be in agreement on all points and in Shangrila they probably would be. However, horticulturalists are scientists who will often split hairs to place species in their "proper" taxonomic scheme. They are often in disagreement among themselves and species sometimes get moved here and there as they try to find a "home". Then comes the problem of using observable features vs. DNA vs. ancestral DNA. That causes more debate in that world.

In the world of horticulture the general public comes into play. To many of them all cones are pine cones. They usually can handle cultivar names under the new scheme but the rest is often a foreign language :). The exceptions of course are the collectors. Most of them want everything correctly labeled and everytime a taxonomist makes a change, the labels have to be changed. Meanwhile, the other 99% of the public could care less. They just want a nice looking plant and will learn the names of the ones they buy, at least for a while.

The point I am trying to make is that as a horticulturalist I want my plants labeled so I know what they are. The name tells me how the plant will grow and I can find its history. Those are the main concerns. I just label my plants as Pinus uncinata. The average person comes to my garden and that is sufficient for them. Otherwise they get "turned off" to all that "foreign language stuff". Meanwhile, a knowledgeable person will not only know the cultivar but upon seeing the name uncinata will know how that species fits into the taxonomic part of the world.

Unless the labeling is being done at a public arboretum, do your visitors a favor and keep the labels simple and use the full names in your records. That is provided you can decide which taxonomist to follow.

Bob

I was just reading a thread over in the galleries section which brought this topic back to my attention. Here's a question for coniferjoy if he's around, though I'd be interested in an answer from anyone knowledgeable in this respect.

Resin states in the other thread, and above too, that "Pinus pseudopumilio" is a synonym of Pinus mugo subsp. rotundata (intergrade between subsp. mugo and subsp. uncinata) ".

When giving cultivar naming advice above, Edwin refers to most as Pinus x pseudopumilio, but one ('Draci Hnizdo') as Pinus rotundata. The explanation of their relatedness which I quoted above indicates that the two are synonymous. I think that someone as precise as Edwin must have a reason for distinguishing between the two...so what is the reason? Is there a legit reason to refer to 'Draci Hnizdo' as rotundata, and the rest as x pseudopumilio?

The reason I'm asking is that it's important to me to have the plants in my collection properly labeled. And of course we all like to know the story behind the names of plants we collect.

Alex

Dears, I suggest to go back to the roots.
Jan Beran & M. Halada discovered between 1980-1985 around the San Sebastian Mts. near Krusne Hory 28 brooms, which became the famous classic group of Cesko.

They are all hybrids of Pinus mugo x Pinus rotundata, which is described by Rosinsky 1999 as Pinus pseudopumilio x. I keep myself to this facts, meanwhile other authors may think whatever they can. These crossings are named in Austria as Pinus uncinata by Etzelstorfer, by Miroslav Kostelnicek of Cesko they are Pinus rotundata finds. Simply told, everyone may think, what they like. The reason is also simply: the broom hunters are not educated botanists and the crossings are really hard to identify. I cant take the risk of mislabeled conifers, so I choose the smallest risk: all are listed under Pinus mugo, and anyone thinks it otherwise, I give the synonyms.

Anyway, these 28 brooms are the beginning of the czech brooming culture, which stays today on 5600 conifer brooms in the literature.

I documented this group with Jiri Balatka and Rudolf Dvoracek in the Conifer Treasury, last time in 2013 in the Conifer Treasury 5.0. See the attached file, please.

The plants are labeled as "San Sebastian" + a number + their real names in one group.

Some words about the doubts of Bob. Yes, there is a Baby and also a Bajaja among the 28 brooms. I guess this uncertainity may cause some misunderstandings.

Zsolt
conifertreasury.org

Here is a link that might be useful: Conifer Treasury 5.0 2013 Pinus mugo +

Barbara,
Caesar is a Pinus uncinata of Franz Etzelstorfer AUT from 2000, published in the Conifer Treasury of Austria 2.0 2012.
Hnizdo (not Hjizdo) is a find of Miroslav Kostelnicek & J. Mottl CZ from 1984, also well documented, specially the motherplant by me.

Zsolt
conifertreasury.org

That's a great answer, Zsolt. I thank you for that information.

My 'Draci Hnizdo' came to me as Pinus uncinata 'Hnijdo'. Based on the information from you and Edwin, I'll label it as Pinus x pseudopumilio 'Draci Hnizdo' to be consistent with the other cultivars, also now labeled as Pinus x pseudopumilio.

Alex

Alex, its simple "Hnizdo" without Draci.
Its a rotundata by his breeder, Miroslav Kostelnicek. The best for listing Pinus mugo rotundata '"Hnizdo".
Good luck
Zsolt

Zsolt is entitled to his opinions, but they are not supported by either morphological or genetic evidence, which clearly indicate that only a single species is involved, with "P. uncinata" and other taxa not significantly differentiated from P. mugo.

Thus the cultivars under "P. x pseudopumilio" should all be listed under P. mugo nothosubsp. rotundata

See:
Christensen, K. I. (1987). Taxonomic revision of the Pinus mugo complex and P. x rhaetica (P. mugo x sylvestris) (Pinaceae). Nordic Journal of Botany 7: 383 408.

Christensen, K. I. & Dar, G. H. (2003). A Morphometric Study of Hybridization between Pinus mugo and P. sylvestris (Pinaceae). Acta Horticulturae 615: 211 221.

Monteleone, I., Ferrazzini, D, & Bellett, P. (2006). Effectiveness of Neutral RAPD Markers to Detect Genetic Divergence between the Subspecies uncinata and mugo of Pinus mugo Turra. Silva Fennica 40 (3): 391-406.

Heuertz, M., Teufel, J., Gonzalez-Martinez, S. C., Soto, A., Fady, B., Alia, R., & Vendramin, G. G. (2010). Geography determines genetic relationships between species of mountain pine (Pinus mugo complex) in western Europe. Journal of Biogeography 37: 541-556.

Resin