Browsing by Author "Temmes, Outi"

It is known that there are many unique and old plant varieties in the green areas of Helsinki. Especially city gardener Bengt Schalin has been known for his love towards flowering shrubs and trees. During his time (1946-57) many plantations of new and interesting varieties took place. The city of Helsinki has nowadays realised the value of those old plants and has taken part to KESKAS-research at 1980’s. Later during Helsinki KESKAS-project seven crab apples (Malus) were selected for propagation. The purpose of this research was to find hardy and beautiful old crab apple trees among the population found in the parks of Helsinki, and also to find out what species, clones or varieties they represent on the grounds of their morphological marks. The seven tree varieties previously chosen for propagation also needed precise descriptions to avoid name confusions in the market. They were also compared to the rest of the crab apple population to see if they really are unique. Observations were made in summer 2006 and during flowering time 30 trees all over Helsinki were selected for a closer study. 13 characteristics were observed from the flowers, 12 from the leaves and 10 from the fruits. In addition to measured traits a broad collection of photographs was taken to help later comparisons. Descriptions of all research trees were made on the grounds of observations. 24 trees had red flowers, one had red buds which opened to almost white flowers and five had white flowers. Semidouble or double flowers could be found from five trees, and one of them had white flowers. The trees were also grouped on the grounds of their flowers size, fruit size and the remaining of calyx. Hierarchical cluster analysis was also used to help grouping. A couple of the research trees could be categorised as the same species, clones or varieties. Grouping was backed up with the help of ?2-test and comparing the standard deviations of the groups. Species or variety name suggestions for 14 trees were found and two trees were assumed to have the same species in their genotype. However reliable naming could not be done because the descriptions found in the literature were so inaccurate.