Cornus alpina W.P.Fang & W.K.Hu — Mountain dogwood

Introduction

Mountain dogwood (Cornus alpina) is a southwestern Chinese member of Subgenus Thelycrania that Tree TSAR provisionally restores to species rank. Flora-based backbones have often submerged the name within C. macrophylla, but RAD-seq sampling changed the evidentiary balance: three accessions identified as C. alpina from the Yunnan highlands grouped with the southwestern Chinese C. hemsleyi-C. scabrida radiation rather than with ordinary sampled C. macrophylla (Lindelof et al. 2020).

That result does not by itself prove the final circumscription of C. alpina. Lindelof et al. explicitly raised alternatives including introgression or misidentification and called for denser sampling from type localities. Tree TSAR therefore treats species rank as the least speculative current solution while preserving a clear review trigger. Later synthesis retained the lineage separately in the broader phylogenomic framework (Du et al. 2023).

Horticultural and Agricultural Uses

No horticultural program is clearly associated with Cornus alpina under its own name. Material in collections may have circulated as C. macrophylla, so verified wild provenance is more useful than a garden label when attempting to represent the species.

Until the type concept is tied more securely to sampled populations, propagation should emphasize documented accessions rather than broad distribution. This is a case where a living collection can directly support taxonomic research if voucher material and DNA-quality tissue are retained.

Conservation Concerns

No reliable species-specific global conservation assessment can be applied with confidence while the geographic circumscription remains unsettled. The practical priority is to document and resample the Yunnan populations associated with the name, especially the type region, so that distribution, population size, and evolutionary distinctness can be assessed together rather than inferred from broad C. macrophylla records.

Additional Information

Plants of the World Online (opens in a new tab) - Current Kew treatment; Tree TSAR departs from the synonymy shown there.
International Plant Names Index (opens in a new tab) - Nomenclatural record search.
2020 RAD-seq study (opens in a new tab) - Primary genomic evidence motivating Tree TSAR species-level recognition.

References and Further Reading

Lindelof K, Lindo JA, Zhou W, Ji X, Xiang Q-Y (2020) Phylogenomics, biogeography, and evolution of the blue- or white-fruited dogwoods (Cornus) - insights into morphological and ecological niche divergence following intercontinental geographic isolation. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 58(5): 604-645. https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.12676 (opens in a new tab)

Du Z-Y, Xiang Q-Y, Cheng J, Zhou W, Wang Q-F, Soltis DE, Soltis PS (2023) An updated phylogeny, biogeography, and PhyloCode-based classification of Cornaceae based on three sets of genomic data. American Journal of Botany 110(2): e16116. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16116 (opens in a new tab)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2026) Cornus alpina W.P.Fang & W.K.Hu. Plants of the World Online. https://powo.science.kew.org/results?q=Cornus%20alpina%20W.P.Fang%20%26%20W.K.Hu (opens in a new tab)