Korean Hornbeam (s)

[Mac In Oak Ridge]

How do you tell the difference between Carpinus turczaninowii and Carpinus coreana? Both are sold as Korean Hornbeam.

Since all the leaves are gone is the bark between them distinctive or must I wait till next spring to find out?

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I could be totally wrong about this, but my K. Cornea has thin, very light colored bark, with vertical "fissures" that aren't very pronounced. Other KH that I've seen that I think are turcs have slightly thicker bark, and more clearly defined vertical fissures in the bark. I don't know if Bill's is a turc or not, but the bark on his in this photo is definitely heavier and shows more pronounced fissures than my old imported Yamadori coreana:

 

[jk_lewis]

According to The Plant List, Carpinus coreana is an out-of-date synonym for Carpinus turczaninowii -- http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-34321

That's really too bad, because I'd rather type "coreana" than "turczaninowii."

 

[cmeg1]

The regular turczaninowii has slightly longer leaves and internodes.I think Coreana is a variation of the regular turczaninowii .They are booth turczaninowii .The Coreana usually has more horizontal growth in the young branches and closer internodes and more rounded smaller leaves.

 

[cmeg1]

Some more Coreana leaves

 

[discusmike]

I have two types of korean h. One is the same as the leaves in the photo, the others have much smaller more pleated leaves, not sure if they are a dwarf variation or something else