Picea ? maximowiczii (probable hybrid)

Pictures of Picea maximowiczii taken at Westonbirt Arboretum, May 2013. The newly emerged foliage is a pleasant light green colour. (Edit: as noted below the tree shown is likely to be a hybrid)

 

Re: Picea maximowiczii

Many / most specimens in Britain labelled this species appear to be second generation garden-origin hybrids (possibly with Picea orientalis); none of the older specimens are known to be from wild-sourced seed.

Foliage on wild-sourced plants grown in the Danish National Arboretum have very different foliage, reminiscent of a miniature Picea torano, with viciously sharp needles.

 

Re: Picea maximowiczii

I wondered if tree shown would be correct.

 

Re: Picea maximowiczii

Please rename or delete the thread as you see fit. The name on the tree's tag seemd to match the descriptions of Picea maximowiczii encountered online, but it wouldn't be the first time I have encountered a mislabeled tree in an arboretum.

Given the size of the tree and its location in the arboretum I had assumed it to be from the original planting in the late 1800's. Height of pictured tree listed as 24m in 2002.

 

Thanks! I've renamed it "Picea ? maximowiczii (probable hybrid)". It's worth keeping the thread open, so people are aware of the identity questions. Problem with the descriptions online, is that they too may well be from the cultivated plants in Britain (or elsewhere). It is very rare in the wild in Japan, and not easily accessible, so getting verified wild material isn't easy.

The species was first introduced to Britain in 1865, but the oldest known surviving specimen (at Dawyck, Scotland) was planted in 1913, plenty of time for it to be a second-generation plant grown from open-pollinated seed from the (now dead) first generation trees. Westonbirt has three specimens, one planted 1935 (your photo is this one, accession no 11.0048), the other two in 1946.

Measurements for 11.0048:
(Mitchell 1969): 15.5 m tall, 31 cm trunk diameter
(TROBI 2002): 24 m tall, 60 cm trunk diameter

 

Thanks, that seems the best approach for this thread. I had not taken the pictures with the intention of posting here, I simply took a few photos because the new foliage looked interesting, and then seeing there was not a thread for this species decided to start one. Next time I am at Westonbirt I will look for cones on this tree and also take photos of the other specimens in the hope that some might be true to type.

There are seven accessions of Picea maximowiczii listed in the current Westonbirt database; other than the pictured one four are listed at heights between 12.75m and 19.8m located close together in section 06, and two in section 32, both said to be 19m tall.

P.S. estimate of current size of 11.0048 is 70cm trunk diameter and the height I couldn't put a figure on other than to say it looks over 25m.

 

Thanks!

I've got a bag of UK-cultivated cones (from Dawyck and Bedgebury), which I'll have to dig out some time and take some pics. As I remember of the specimens I've seen, one tree at Dawyck came fairly close (in both needle and cone morphology) to the illustrations in Kurata's Illustrated important forest trees of Japan so may be true to name, but did have the down side that its cones only contained blind seed (a potential indicator of hybrid sterility); cones from other trees contained good seed, but their cones and foliage both showed some similarity to Picea orientalis (hence my postulation of that as the potential pollen parent).

The Danish wild-origin trees were too young to have cones when I saw them, a while back. They should be old enough now though.

 

Here are some more detailed pictures of the tree in question. On this occasion I did not get a chance to find the other accessions present in the arboretum, maybe another time.

 

Thanks!

The needles show the blunt apex typical of other UK-grown specimens I've seen, and very unlike the wild-origin ones in Denmark. Blunt needle apex again suggests a potential P. orientalis parentage.

The cones are closely similar to the ones I have.

 

Thanks. In order to know what I am looking for I am interested in seeing pictures of the "correct" needle form for Picea maximowiczii but am having trouble tracking some down. Do you have any links to pictures of verified specimens? Most google image results turn out either to be blunt or an entirely different species of spruce.

These Flickr images taken at Morton Arboretum are typical of most I am finding, even more blunt than the ones above:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37738527@N06/3477595432/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37738527@N06/3477595676/in/photostream/

Maybe this is more like it? This one co-credited to Kew gardens shows a similar type but with a slightly sharper point to the needle tips:
http://www.arkive.org/picea/picea-maximowiczii/

This Hungarian site shows a totally different, tapered and much sharper needle shape, is this more what I am looking for? The problems I have with this one are that the plants are young, I haven't seem any other pictures with similar foliage shape at other sites and just general distrust of sites I don't know:
http://ns4.cpanel.hu/~egzota9/tarolo/conifertreasury/ren2/Mesterh%e1zy%20Pinetum/Picea%20maximowiczii%20Erd%f5tarcsa%202010%20szeptember%20136.jpg
http://ns4.cpanel.hu/~egzota9/tarol...%20Erd%f5tarcsa%202010%20szeptember%20137.jpg

 

Sorry, I don't have any pics of the Danish National Arboretum trees.

The Morton ones look even more like Picea orientalis. Not sure what to make of the Kew and Hungarian specimens; I'd like to know their accession data.

The best bets are this pic [from this blog], this pic and these pics; they're all very small unfortunately, but have a better probability of being wild origin plants. I found them by doing a google images search with the Japanese name of the species (ヒメバラモミ). This pic shows the illustration from Kurata's Illustrated important forest trees of Japan (1971), which one hopes too would have been drawn from wild material.

Edit: this pic (cultivated at Tsukuba Botanical Garden) from here, shows the sharpness well. From google translating this page, it appears there's less than a thousand trees left in the wild.

Edit 2: At this page, ignore the top left pic (which is surely Picea alcoquiana!), but the top right pic looks to be genuine.

 

Thank you, I think I have a better idea of what to look for now.