Cool photo ! ....when you do a Google image search on Inversa, you get an incredible variety of forms. Presumably some of the taller forms require staking, just like P. omorika Pendula Bruns ? ...or maybe this is not the best comparison: are there other comparisons more appropriate ? ....or perhaps personal experience that might be helpful to others ? (Thnx)
Jaro this clone must be one of those that if started young is staked and has a single leader until it is strong enough to continue to produce just a single leader, it will be a very narrow upright pendulous form. Otherwise, it just goes all over the place and every direction. It should be a single clone with varying understanding that it does not reflect Picea abies 'Pendula' which is a multi-cloned and has a high degree of variation. Bob Fincham has given the name Picea abies forma. 'Pendula' for the numerous clones circulated under the name 'Pendula'. I've often wondered the same question but drew my own conclusions based on the current information that doesn't list this named cultivar as having more than one clone in circulation and that comes from these publications: Jacobson, Arthur Lee ‘North American Landscape Trees’ (1996); Ten Speed Press. ISBN:0898158133 Gelderen and Smith ‘Conifers The Illustrated Encyclopedia’ Volume 2 (2nd printing, 1999); Timber Press Inc. ISBN: 0881923540 Obrizok ‘A Garden of Conifers – Introduction and Selection Guide’ (1999); Firefly Books Ltd. ISBN: 0913643084 Erhardt, Walter - 'List of Conifer Names' (2005); ISBN: 3800148813 Humphrey Welch and Gordon Haddow – ‘The World Checklist of Conifers’ (First Edition August 1993); Landsman Bookshop Ltd. ISBN: 0900513098 Stanley & Sons Nursery Inc.; 2006-2007 Wholesale Nursery Catalog. If my memory serves me right I believe 'Conifers the Illustrated Encyclopedia' shows an upright form. Nope, must have seen some somewhere else. Later, Dax
Plant shown here looks absolutely like the common 'Reflexa', sold by nurseries as 'Pendula'. 'Inversa' often has a leader, resulting in a tree more like a weeping Sequoia, with a visible trunk and with a pointed top going off to the side, well above the ground. There is a photo of a spectacular 'Inversa' on page 92 of Van Pelt, Champion Trees of Washington State (1996, University of Washington Press, Seattle) taken at Woodbine Cemetary, Puyallup, WA. During 1992 this example measured 52' x 4'3" x 27'. The same cultivar can also be seen locally at Kubota Gardens Park, Seattle, where one was 32' x 2'9" in 2004-5.
>Bob Fincham has given the name Picea abies forma. 'Pendula' for the numerous clones circulated under the name 'Pendula'< If you look at your other references listed P. abies f. pendula is attributed to (Booth ex Laws.) N. Sylven. Also note that it wouldn't be P. abies f. 'Pendula' as the quote marks and capitalization (in this instance) would indicate a cultivar name rather than a botanical one (forma is a botanical category). (Maybe it's a typo but there is also no period after forma, it is a complete word (abbreviated as f.)).
