Pinus mugo Turra
mountain pine
Small tree or multi-stemmed shrub. Bark peeling in small thin flakes, dark brownish grey, often trunk appearing rather smooth. Shoots green, eventually brown, glabrous. Buds broad-cylindric or cylindric-ovoid, resinous; scales tightly appressed, purplish. Foliage often dense, tending to be directed forward. Lvs 2 per fascicle, (2)-3-7-(9) cm × 1-1.5 mm, dark green, rigid, ± curved but not twisted; apex rather pungent; resin canals marginal; sheath c. 1.5 cm long, soon wearing away except for basal fringe. ♂ strobili < 1 cm long, broad-cylindric. Conelets shortly stalked or subsessile; scales prominently mucronate. Mature cones ± erect, subsessile, not persisting long after maturity, 2.5-5.5 × 2.5-5 cm when open, ovoid or conic-ovoid, dark brown, ± symmetric; apophyses flat or sometimes convex on upper side, especially in slightly asymmetric cones; mucro very small and not armed. Seed wing ± oblong, c. 1 cm long.
N.: Kaweka State Forest Park; S.: inland Canterbury (Lewis Pass Road and Craigieburn area).
European mountains from France and Italy E. 1988
Slopes and terraces, usually from limited regeneration near planted trees.
Mountain pine has been widely planted for erosion control and afforestation, particularly in the Craigieburn Mountains, where it now covers considerable areas where indigenous Nothofagus forest does not occur. Thus, although P. mugo tolerates severe climates in N.Z. almost as successfully as P. contorta, and although cones are often freely produced, it is not an aggressive coloniser like the contorta pine. Mountain pine has been known previously in N.Z. as P. montana.
P. uncinata Mirbel (sometimes treated as P. mugo var. rostrata Hooper), from the French Alps and Pyrenes, is the closely related western counterpart of P. mugo. It has also been planted in the high country of N.Z., but is not as successful as P. mugo and there are no confirmed records of it being wild. P. uncinata usually forms a tree, unlike P. mugo, and has asymmetric cones with the lower or basal apophyses, especially on the upper side, strongly elongated and the umbo with or without a rather blunt prickle. Some plants have cones ± intermediate between the 2 spp. in symmetry and apophysis shape.
