Pinus mugo
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
mountain pine
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Gymnosperms
Flower colours
No flowers
Detailed description
Small tree or multi-stemmed shrub. Foliage often dense, tending to be directed forward. Leaves in fascicles of two, 3–7 cm by 1–1.5 mm, dark green rigid, more or less curved but not twisted. Male cones < 1 cm long, broad-cylindric. Female cones shortly stalked, erect, not persisting long after maturity, 2.5–5.5 × 2.5–5 cm when open, ovoid or conic-ovoid, dark brown, symmetric. Seed wing oblong, c. 1 cm long.
Similar taxa
Short needles in pairs, small symmetrical cones with no spike. No stalk on the cone (cf. P. sylvestris). Pinus uncinata is very similar, but has asymmetric cones, with some cone scales strongly elongated downwards.
Habitat
Terrestrial.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Ecology
Year naturalised
1988
Origin
European mountains from France and Italy E.
Reason for introduction
Agricultural
Life cycle and dispersal
Perennial; wind dispersed.
Other information
Extra information
The National Wilding Conifer Control Programme team at Biosecurity New Zealand, a branch of Ministry for Primary Industries, has produced this wilding conifer quick ID guide.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
PINMUG