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Mugo pine

Pinus mugo · Pinaceae · all Pinus records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Eastern Nebraska; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources

Living With Fire — A Homeowner's Guide, Eastern Nebraska Edition · Official scoped edition
- Eastern Nebraska (NE footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-01-01
  Nebraska Forest Service labels this the Eastern Nebraska Edition. FireApproved publishes the two exact taxon-resolvable owners from its direct avoid sentence as eastern Nebraska context. Arborvitae and other ambiguous common names remain held; Western Nebraska is not inferred.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in DC, DE, MA, MD, NH, NJ, OH, PA, WI, WV.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: 1 ecological invasive report; set a location to distinguish exact from regional context.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Mugo pine (Pinus mugo) — Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: shrub
USDA hardiness: Minimum 3a; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~3 ft
Light: Full sun
Water need: low
Grows in: DC, DE, MA, MD, NH, NJ, OH, PA +2
Rated in: Eastern Nebraska; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Family: Pinaceae
Evidence: 3 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record pinus-mugo · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 4 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Pinus mugo · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record PIMU80 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 3a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -38°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Pinus mugo · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 15508, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its avoid rating)
Living With Fire: Lean, Clean and Green Area Tips (PDF page 11) [Nebraska defensible-space zones] (with its avoid rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (3)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“NOT Firewise (4)”

Shrubby pine found in landscape only-2-3 inch needles in bundles of 2.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) — Virginia Cooperative Extension / Virginia Tech (Appleton, Frenzel, Hillegass, Lyons, Steward — Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force) · 2009 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“H flammability”

Susceptible to many insect and disease problems.
Living With Fire — A Homeowner's Guide, Eastern Nebraska Edition — Nebraska Forest Service · Eastern Nebraska edition · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unr-tree

“Avoid juniper, mugo pine and arborvitae.”

The Lean, Clean and Green Area tips explicitly say to avoid mugo pine.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Snowberry
Symphoricarpos albus

High bush blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum

Common witchhazel
Hamamelis virginiana

Winterberry holly
Ilex verticillata

Ninebark
Physocarpus opulifolius

Mapleleaf viburnum
Viburnum acerifolia

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Pinus mugo (Mugo pine). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/pinus-mugo/. Last verified 2026-08-23.