Pinus parviflora Japanese White-pine

A very distinctive, 5-needled pine with a relatively short, shrubby growth form, a boadly conical shape and rather short needles, rarely more than 7cm long and usually shorter, giving the leaf bundles a bottlebrush appearance. It is native to Japan where it occurs as two separate varieties, Pinus parviflora var. parviflora and Pinus parviflora var. pentaphylla which grows at altitude in the Hakkoda Mountains of northern Japan where it sometimes forms a hybrid (Pinus x hakkodensis) with Dwarf Siberian-pine (Pinus pumila). Cultivars grown in parks and gardens are often quite glaucous in colour and some forms are rather dwarf in stature, e.g. 'Bonnie Bergman' and 'Addocks Dwarf'. It is also a popular species for bonsai. There are no records of it as a naturalised species in West Glamorgan.