International Checklist of Pyracantha Cultivars 
Introduction 
Pyracantha—derived from the Greek pyr for fire 
and akanthos for thorn because of its red fruit 
and its spiny branches—is most commonly 
called firethorn. The plant is also known by 
other vernacular names; these include 
brandend-bos and vuurdoorn in Dutch; burn- 
ing bush, Christ’s thorn, evergreen thorn, 
everlasting thorn, fiery thorn, and white thorn 
in English; arbre-de moise, buisson-ardent, 
epine-ardente, petit-corail, and pyracanthe in 
French; brennender-busch, feuerbusch, 
feuerdorn, feuerstraucher, and immergrtner- 
weissdorn in German; agazzino, marruca-nera, 
and prunogazzerino in Italian; and kamatuka 
and kankasus in Japanese. 
The genus Pyracantha Roem. belongs to the 
subfamily Pomoideae of the Rosaceae. Pyracan- 
tha taxa are evergreen or deciduous shrubs 
usually having thorny branches. A further 
description of these taxa is as follows: buds 
small, pubescent; leaves alternate, short 
petioled, narrow obovate, elliptic, oblong or 
oblanceolate, crenulate, serrulate, or entire, 
stipules minute, caducous; flowers in corymb 
or fascicled corymbose inflorescence, white or 
pale cream, petals suborbicular, spreading, 
sepals short, stamens 20, anthers yellow, 
carpels 5, free on ventral side, on dorsal side 
connate about half to the calyx tube; fruit a 
small pome with persistent calyx, yellow, 
orange, or red, nutlets 5. 
As with other taxa of the Rosaceae, Pyracantha 
taxa (or species) have been classified as belong- 
ing to several related genera. The plant was 
first designated as Mespilus by Linnaeus 
(1737). It was later assigned to Crataegus by 
Medicus (1793), to Cotoneaster by Spach 
(1834), to Pyracantha by Roemer (1847), to 
Sportella by Hance (1877), and to Timbalia by 
Clos (1871). Pyracantha is most closely allied to 
Cotoneaster and Crataegus. It is distinguished 
from Cotoneaster by the presence of thorns, 
usually crenate or serrate leaves, flowers in 
corymbs, 5 pistils that are dorsally connate to 
the calyx tube along the basal half, and fruit 
with 5 nutlets. It is distinguished from 
Crataegus by having 2 fertile ovules in each 
carpel rather than 1, evergreen unlobed leaves, 
and leafy thorns. 
Pyracantha consists of 10 species that are 
indistinctly defined and overlap in their geo- 
graphical distribution. The genus originally 
ranged from Spain through the Himalayas to 
China and may be divided into three geographic 
sections: 
e the Mediterranean (Spain to the Caucasus 
Mountains) with P. coccinea Roem. 
e the Himalayan with P. crenulata (D. Don) 
Roem.; and 
e the Chinese with eight species—P. 
angustifolia (Franch.) Schneid., P. 
atalantioides (Hance) Stapf, P. densiflora 
Yu, P. fortuneana (Maxim.) Li, P. inermis 
Vidal, P. koidzumii (Hayata) Rehd., P. 
mekongensis Yu, and P. rogersiana (A.B. 
Jacks.) Bean. 
Morphologically, the flowers and fruit of all 10 
species are similar except in size and shape; the 
species are distinguished primarily on the basis 
of leaf characteristics. However, since leaf 
dimorphism may occur on the same plant or 
among seedlings in a population, the taxa 
cannot be accurately designated by using only a 
limited sample of herbarium specimens. With 
the exceptions of P. koidzumii and P. angustifolia, 
the Chinese species demonstrate only slight 
morphological divergence. Stapf (1926) reviewed 
the Chinese species complex. As species popula- 
tions are known to overlap, it may well be that 
two or more species populations are in reality 
only interbreeding populations of the same 
species. 
History of Cultivation 
Pyracantha is extensively cultivated for its 
diverse growth habits—its dense, dark green, 
often evergreen foliage; its spectacular white or 
cream floral display in late spring; and, fore- 
most, for its abundant and persistent, brilliant 
yellow, orange, or red fruit. The plant is highly 
