Cotoneaster integerrimus

Cotoneaster integerrimus
1796 painting from Germany
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Genus:	Cotoneaster
Species:	Cotoneaster integerrimus
Binomial name
Cotoneaster integerrimus Medik.
Synonyms
Cotoneaster cotoneaster Degen nom. inval. Cotoneaster cotoneaster H.Karst. nom. inval.

Cotoneaster integerrimus (Common Cotoneaster) is a species of Cotoneaster native to central and eastern Europe and southwest Asia, from southern Belgium and eastern France south to Italy, and east through Germany to the Balkans, northern Turkey, the Crimea, the Caucasus and northern Iran; plants in Spain may also belong in this species. In the past, it was treated in a wider sense, including plants from Wales now split off as Cotoneaster cambricus and plants from Scandinavia now treated as Cotoneaster scandinavicus, but differs from these in genetic profile and detail of foliage and fruit.^[1][2][3]

It is a deciduous shrub growing to 2 m tall. The leaves are oval to oval-acute, 1–4 cm long, green and thinly pubescent above at first, later glabrous, and densely pubescent below and on the leaf margin, with pale grey hairs. The flowers are produced in corymbs of one to four (occasionally up to seven) together in mid spring, each flower 3 mm diameter, with five white to pale pink petals. The fruit is a dark red pome 6–8 mm diameter, containing two or three seeds. It occurs on limestone soils, at altitudes of up to 2,800 m altitude.^[1][4][5]

Nomenclature

The genus name Cotoneaster derives from cotone, an old Latin name for the quince, and the suffix -aster, 'resembling'. The name is correctly masculine, though in some older works it was wrongly treated as feminine, resulting in different name endings for many of the species (e.g. "Cotoneaster integerrima" instead of Cotoneaster integerrimus).^[6]. The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (articles 23.5 and 32.7 in the 2007 Vienna code) specifies that such names are not invalid, but are to be corrected without altering the author or date of publication.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Den virtuella floran: Cotoneaster scandinavicus (in Swedish)
2. ^ Species Action Plan: Wild Cotoneaster Cotoneaster cambricus (pdf file)
3. ^ Flora of NW Europe: Cotoneaster cambricus
4. ^ Blamey, M. & Grey-Wilson, C. (1989). Flora of Britain and Northern Europe. ISBN 0-340-40170-2.
5. ^ Huxley, A., ed. (1992). New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. Macmillan ISBN 0-333-47494-5.
6. ^ Bean, W. J. (1976). Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles 8th edition. John Murray ISBN 0-7195-1790-7.