This hybrid between M. kobus and the allied M. stellata was described from plants raised from a deliberate cross between the two species made by Max Löbner of Pillnitz, Germany, shortly before World War I. The original plants were sold in 1923 and of these Messrs Kordes of Sparrieshoop acquired five (Wilhelm Kordes in Deutsche Baumschule, August 1964, p. 242). Herr Kordes states in the article cited that one of the original plants, growing in his garden, is 25 ft high and 28 ft across, and produces flowers in unbelievable profusion about one week before M. × soulangiana. He adds that it is easily reproduced by cuttings.
M. × loebneri has typically about twelve petals to the flower and narrowly obovate leaves.
cv.‘Leonard Messel’. – Flowers with twelve petals, purplish pink on the outside, white within. Raised at Nymans, Sussex, and believed to be the result of a chance cross between M. kobus and M. stellata f. rosea. Award of Merit, 3 May 1955.
cv. ‘Merrill’. – Petals almost as numerous as in M. stellata but twice as wide. This is the result of a deliberate cross made at the Arnold Arboretum. The original plant, from seed sown in 1939, was 25 ft high in 1956 (Arnoldia, Vol. 9, p. 11 and Vol. 15, p. 8).
If M. stellata is treated as a variety of M. kobus, the plants mentioned above would have to be regarded as cultivars of M. kobus, since they would be the results of crossing within that species.