Abstract
The paper presents results on the occurrence of three- (or more) needle dwarf shoots on two-needle pine species in southern and central Europe. The anomalous dwarf shoots were found on single individuals of Pinus halepensis and P. nigra from Greece, and on P. sylvestris from Spain. The significantly high level of frequency of individuals with at least one anomalous three-needle dwarf shoot were confirmed for P. mugo subsp. uncinata from western and for P. mugo subsp. mugo from central Europe. The frequency of individuals with anomalous dwarf shoots on the latter species in the Balkan populations is statistically significantly lower than in the Alpine, Sudethian and Carpathian ones. The highest frequencies of individuals with three-needle dwarf shoots on P. mugo subsp. mugo were found in the northernmost populations, in the Sudethian and west Carpathian ones, and in the locations near the upper limit of the species.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge JM Montserrat and D Tomaszewski for collection of material from Pinus halepensis in the Baleares, and G Iszkuło, D Tomaszewski and E Muchewicz for collection of material from P. sylvestris and P. mugo subsp. uncinata in western Europe. The study was made possible thanks to the cooperation between the Institute of Dendrology (Kornik, Poland), the MG Kholodny Institute of Botany in Kyiv and the Institute of Botany in Barcelona, Spain.
Notes
1. The names of species and acronyms of authors after World checklist and bibliography of Conifers by A. Farjon (Citation2001).