| Ulmus americana 'Moline' | |
|---|---|
 Juvenile U. americana 'Moline' | |
| Species | Ulmus americana |
| Cultivar | 'Moline' |
| Origin | Moline, Illinois, US |
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Moline' was cloned from a wild seedling transplanted to Moline, Illinois, from nearby Rock River Valley in 1903 and propagated from 1916 by the Klehm Nurseries, Arlington Heights, Illinois. [1] [2] [3]
'Moline' is distinguished by its narrow but open form, with a single central trunk likened to a Lombardy Poplar when young, [4] the branches of the older trees being ultimately horizontal. [5] The leaves, of a dark rich shade of green, [6] could be exceptionally broad, measuring 15 cm across. [1] [3] [7] [8]
A photograph captioned 'The Moline elm as it is growing in Moline, Illinois' in the Arnold Arboretum paper 'Elms grown in America' (1951) [9] in fact shows a specimen of the field elm cultivar 'Umbraculifera' in Moline. [10]
'Moline' was susceptible to Dutch elm disease. [11] In trials at the Morton Arboretum, Illinois, the tree was eschewed by the Elm Leaf Beetle Xanthogaleruca luteola . [12] No other specific information available, but the species as a whole is highly preferred for feeding by the Japanese Beetle Popillia japonica . [13] [14] U. americana is the most susceptible of all the elms to verticillium wilt. [15]
In earlier field trials at Morton, 'Moline' was found to have a relatively fast growth rate, exceeding 7.7 m (25 ft) in height in 10 years. The clone was hardy through Iowa, Illinois, Southern Wisconsin, and Michigan, [6] but was susceptible to frost further north. By 1928 Minnesota winters had claimed most of the 568 'Moline' in Victory Memorial Drive in North Minneapolis, commemorating the war dead of Hennepin County; they were replaced with hardier 'Minneapolis Park'. [16] [6] In Lake City and Duluth, Minnesota, 'Moline' and its stablemate 'Vase' were found to be vulnerable to frost crack and sun scald, and were replaced by the cultivar 'Lake City', the bark of which grew rough at a younger age. [17] 'Moline' was still in cultivation in the 1950s, [18] [19] but was by then considered by Trees Magazine "an inferior type of American elm". [20] It is not known to have been introduced to Europe or Australasia.
'Moline' was crossed with American Elm W-185-21 to create the moderately disease-resistant cultivar 'Independence'.
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Augustine', originally called 'Augustine Ascending', was cloned by Archie M. Augustine of the Augustine Nursery of Bloomington, Illinois, from a nursery seedling planted in 1927 in Normal, Illinois, and found to be columnar in habit.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Exhibition' is a selection made by the Patmore Nurseries from seeds of a tree at Brandon, Manitoba. Released in 1952, 'Exhibition' was propagated by grafting.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Lake City' is a semi-fastigiate form cloned in the early 1920s from a ten-year old seedling found growing outside the Lutheran parsonage, Lake City, Minnesota, and released by the Lake City Nurseries there in 1931. The Nurseries published a nine-page booklet on it in 1932, 'The Lake City Elm', with full description, a photograph of the original tree, and commendatory letters. It was later described by Wyman in Trees Magazine 3 (4): 13, 1940.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Littleford' was cloned from a tree in Hinsdale, Illinois, circa 1915 by Littleford Nurseries of Downers Grove, Illinois, and first released in 1927. It was marketed in the 1930s by nearby Hinsdale Nurseries, successor to Littleford Nurseries, as 'Littlefordii'. In their 1925 catalogue Littleford Nurseries had written of their selection: "The growing of the American elm is a specialty with us; we consider it the leading shade and ornamental tree. Our trees are a selected strain of the V-shaped type, a stock of 15 to 20 thousand, all 2 ins. and up in size, transplanted twice and in splendid vigor for planting".
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Beebe's Weeping' was propagated from a tree growing in the wild at Galena, Illinois, by Mr. E. Beebe in the mid-19th century. Thomas Meehan, who had received cuttings and called it 'Weeping Slippery Elm' before the flowers revealed that it was not Ulmus fulva, suggested the name 'Beebe's Weeping Elm', as there were already U. americana clones called 'Pendula'. In the early 20th century it was marketed, however, as Ulmus 'American Galena Weeping', "American Weeping Elm", by the Klehm nursery of Arlington Heights, Illinois.
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Ascendens', 'Upright American Elm', was cloned c.1910 by Bernard H. Slavin, Superintendent of Parks, Rochester, New York, from a tree growing in Seneca Park, Rochester, and named in 1927 for its narrow oval form.
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Aurea' was cloned from a tree discovered by F. L. Temple in Vermont at the end of the 19th century.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Columnaris' was propagated by R. E. Horsey of the Rochester N.Y. Parks Department from a tree found by Mr John Dunbar at Conesus Lake, New York, in 1911, and originally described as a forma, Ulmus americana L. f. columnaris, f. nov.Rehder (1922). It was the earliest of a number of compact, columnar American elm cultivars, to be followed by 'Ascendens' and 'Augustine Ascendening'.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Fiorei' was raised by the Charles Fiore Nurseries, Prairie View, Illinois, before 1949, and first listed as 'Fiorii', Fiore Elm, without description. It is no longer listed by the company.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Kimley' was cloned c.1957 by the Sheridan Nurseries, Mississauga, Canada, from a large tree found near Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Klehmii' was cloned from a tree growing at Arlington Heights by Mr Charles Klehm, proprietor of the Charles Klehm & Son nursery. As it is unlikely that Klehms would have released two different vase-shaped American white elm cultivars at the same date (1926), and as nurseries introducing Klehms' 'Vase Elm' always introduced its stablemate 'Moline' at the same time, it is probable that Naperville's 'Klehmii' was the same clone as Klehms' 'Vase'.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Morden' was cloned from a selection made by the Dominion Experimental Farm, Morden, Manitoba, in 1939 on account of its ability to withstand severe ice storms without breakage.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Star' was a selection made by the Plumfield Nursery, Fremont, Nebraska, c. 1945.
The so-called American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Variegata' was a Belgian clone mentioned by Wesmael in Bulletin de la Fédération des sociétés d'horticulture de Belgique, 1862, as Ulmus americana var. variegataHort. It was marketed by the Baudriller nursery of Angers as U. americana foliis variegatis. Wesmael's herbarium specimens, however, held in the Botanic Garden, Meise, both of his Ulmus americana and of his Ulmus americana var. variegata, do not appear to show American white elm leaves. It is known that nurseries in Europe and America marketed the golden wych elm Ulmus glabra 'Lutescens' as Ulmus americana aurea, and it is likely that Wesmael's Ulmus americana variegata was similarly misnamed, and perhaps derived from a reverting branch of aurea, whose leaves it resembled.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Vase' was selected and propagated in the early 20th century by the Klehm Nurseries, Arlington Heights, Illinois, who advertised it at first as Ulmus americana 'Urnii', 'Klehms' American Vase-Shaped Elm', listing it, along with its stablemate Ulmus americana 'Moline', as a "novelty" in 1926, and describing both in some detail. Its original cultivar name, 'Urnii' – doubtful Latin – was changed to 'Vase' by Klehms by the 1930s, the tree also featuring as 'Vase Elm' in the catalogues of the Plumfield Nurseries, Fremont, Nebraska, from 1926, along with Klehms' 'Moline'. Vaughan's of Chicago marketed both from 1927. The Naperville Nurseries of Naperville, Illinois, marketed it from 1929 as 'Klehmii', 'Vase Elm', also introducing Klehms' 'Moline' at the same time.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus 'Hamburg' was originally raised by the Plumfield Nurseries, Fremont, Nebraska, circa 1932, after its discovery by Mr. Lloyd Moffet in a bed of Siberian Elm Ulmus pumila seedlings from Tekamah. It was later marketed by Interstate Nurseries, Hamburg, Iowa, from 1948, as 'Interstate's New Hamburg Hybrid Elm'. Green stated that it was originally said be a hybrid of Ulmus pumila and Ulmus americana, but the Hamburg Nurseries of Iowa made no such claim for it in their catalogues from 1948 onwards. It is now considered more likely that Ulmus rubra was the male parent, as it was also known as 'Hybrid Chinese Elm', and therefore probably synonymous with Plumfield Nurseries' 'Hybrid elm' of the same date, a known crossing of U. pumila and U. rubra, – and so, perhaps, also synonymous with Ulmus × intermedia 'Fremont', an elm of the same parentage found a little later in Plumfield Nurseries.
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Pendula' was originally listed by William Aiton in Hort. Kew, 1: 320, 1789, as U. americana var. pendula, cloned in England in 1752 by James Gordon. From the 1880s the Späth nursery of Berlin supplied a cultivar at first listed as Ulmus fulva (Michx.) pendulaHort., which in their 1899 catalogue was queried as a possible variety of U. americana, and which thereafter appeared in their early 20th-century catalogues as U. americana pendula. The Scampston Elm, Ulmus × hollandica 'Scampstoniensis', in cultivation on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th and 20th centuries, was occasionally referred to as 'American Weeping Elm' or Ulmus americana pendula. This cultivar, however, was distinguished by Späth from his Ulmus americana pendula.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Jackson' was cloned c.1990 from an elm selected at Wichita, Kansas, which had reputedly shewn no signs of Dutch elm disease damage at over 50 years of age.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'St. Croix' is a recent (2008) selection cloned from a large tree growing on a farm near Afton, Minnesota, which has displayed a high resistance to Dutch elm disease (DED). A U S patent, PP 20097, was granted in 2009.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × intermedia 'Fremont' is a little-known American hybrid cultivar propagated from a tree found on the Lloyd Moffet property at Fremont, Nebraska. The hybrid is believed to have arisen from a crossing of Ulmus pumila and one of the spring-flowering elms native to North America, probably Ulmus rubra. The source tree was probably an unsold specimen of the Plumfield Nurseries' "Hybrid Elm", a cross between "Chinese elm" and Red elm U. rubra, briefly marketed from 1942 to 1943, but not appearing in later catalogues. This hybrid may have been the same as the cultivar sourced from Plumfield Nurseries at this time as "Hybrid Chinese Elm" and later marketed by the Interstate Nurseries, Hamburg, Iowa, as 'Hamburg'.