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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
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'Pinus parviflora' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
A tree usually 50 to 70 ft in the wild, occasionally attaining 100 ft; young shoots minutely downy; winter-buds ovoid, 3⁄16 in. long, some of their scales free at the tips. Leaves in fives, falling the third year, 11⁄2 to 21⁄2 in. long, very slightly toothed on the margin, twisted, with silvery lines of stomata on the inner surface; leaf-sheath 3⁄8 in. long, deciduous. Cones egg-shaped, 11⁄4 to 4 in. long, oblong-ovoid, usually produced in whorls of three or four, borne in extraordinary profusion even by quite young trees.
A native of Japan; introduced by J. G. Veitch in 1861. As usually seen in this country it is a slow-growing, bushy tree with rather dark needles. As it bears heavy crops of cones, which turn back after opening and persist on the branches for six or seven years, it is not very ornamental. This form has the appearance of a Japanese garden variety and the plants may have been imported from one of the Japanese nurseries early this century or in the last decades of the 19th century. Or it may derive from the original introduction by Veitch. The normal wild form is rare in Britain, the most notable example being a tree at Stourhead, Wilts, measuring 69 × 61⁄2 ft (1970).
specimens: Stourhead, Wilts., 82 × 7 ft (1984); Leonardslee, Sussex, 75 × 4 ft (1984); Tregrehan, Cornwall, 66 × 71⁄2 ft (1974); Boconnoc, Cornwall, 56 × 81⁄2 ft at 2 ft (1983); Castle Milk, Dumfr., 69 × 61⁄2 ft at 3 ft (1984).
cv. ‘Glauca’. – The botanical form of the name – f. glauca Beissn. – is preferable, since several glaucous-leaved variants have been introduced from Japan.
† cv. ‘Negishi’. – An old Japanese cultivar, recently introduced to Europe. Its ultimate height is uncertain, but it will probably be dwarfer than what is usually sold as ‘Glauca’, which it resembles in its blue-grey foliage.