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Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The genus first appeared in the Miocene geological period about 20 million years ago, originating in what is now central Asia. These trees flourished and spread over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, presently ranging southward in the Middle East to Lebanon and Israel, and across the Equator in the Far East into Indonesia.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Plotii', commonly known as Lock Elm or Lock's Elm, Plot's Elm or Plot Elm, and first classified as Ulmus sativaMill. var. Lockii and later as Ulmus plotii by Druce in 1907-11, is endemic mainly to the East Midlands of England, notably around the River Witham in Lincolnshire, in the Trent Valley around Newark-on-Trent, and around the village of Laxton, Northamptonshire. Ronald Melville suggested that the tree's distribution may be related to river valley systems, in particular those of the Trent, Witham, Welland, and Nene. Two further populations existed in Gloucestershire. It has been described as Britain's rarest native elm, and recorded by The Wildlife Trust as a nationally scarce species.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Wredei', also known as Ulmus × hollandica 'Dampieri Aurea' and sometimes marketed as Golden Elm, originated as a sport of the cultivar 'Dampieri' at the Alt-Geltow Arboretum, near Potsdam, Germany, in 1875.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Dauvessei', one of a number of cultivars arising from the crossing of the Wych Elm U. glabra with a variety of Field Elm U. minor, is a very rare cultivar said to have originated at the D. Dauvesse nursery in Orléans, France before 1877.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Horizontalis', commonly known as the Weeping Wych Elm or Horizontal Elm, was discovered in a Perth nursery circa 1816. The tree was originally identified as 'Pendula' by Loddiges (London), in his catalogue of 1836, a name adopted by Loudon two years later in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, 3: 1398, 1838, but later sunk as a synonym for 'Horizontalis'.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Purpurea', the purple-leaved elm, was listed and described as Ulmus Stricta Purpurea, the 'Upright Purpled-leaved Elm', by John Frederick Wood, F.H.S., in The Midland Florist and Suburban Horticulturist (1851), as Ulmus purpureaHort. by Wesmael (1863), and as Ulmus campestris var. purpurea, syn. Ulmus purpureaHort. by Petzold and Kirchner in Arboretum Muscaviense (1864). Koch's description followed (1872), the various descriptions appearing to tally. Henry (1913) noted that the Ulmus campestris var. purpureaPetz. & Kirchn. grown at Kew as U. montana var. purpurea was "probably of hybrid origin", Ulmus montana being used at the time both for wych elm cultivars and for some of the U. × hollandica group. His description of Kew's U. montana var. purpurea matches that of the commonly-planted 'Purpurea' of the 20th century. His discussion of it (1913) under U. campestris, however, his name for English Elm, may be the reason why 'Purpurea' is sometimes erroneously called U. procera 'Purpurea' (as in USA and Sweden.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera' [:shade-giving] was originally cultivated in Iran, where it was widely planted as an ornamental and occasionally grew to a great size, being known there as 'Nalband' Persian: نعلبند [:the tree of the farriers]. Litvinov considered it a cultivar of a wild elm with a dense crown that he called U. densa, from the mountains of Turkestan, Ferghana, and Aksu. Non-rounded forms of 'Umbraculifera' are also found in Isfahan Province, Iran. Zielińksi in Flora Iranica considered it an U. minor cultivar.
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.
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'.
Ulmus glabra 'Cebennensis', also known as the Cevennes Elm, is a cultivar of the Wych Elm. The first known publication of the cultivar epithet was in the 1831-1832 catalogue from the Audibert brothers plant nursery at Tonelle, near Tarascon in France. The cultivar was given the name Ulmus campestris var. cebennensis.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Tortuosa'Host, the Wiggly Elm, was described by Host in Flora Austriaca (1827) as Ulmus tortuosa, from low, twisted, small-leaved trees that grew in the hilly districts of Hungary. A contemporary herbarium specimen (1833) from Central Europe labelled U. tortuosaHost appears to show small field elm-type leaves. Henry distinguished 'Tortuosa' Host from Loddiges' and Loudon's U. tortuosa, which he identified with Ulmus 'Modiolina', "l'orme tortillard" of France. Henry noted, however, that abnormal sinuous or zigzagging growth "might occur in any kind of elm", and herbarium specimens of elms labelled 'Tortuosa' range from U. minor cultivars to hybrid cultivars, some treated as synonymous with 'Modiolina'. A large-leaved U. campestris tortuosa was described by David in Revue horticole (1846), while a hybrid var. tortuosa cultivar from Louveigné, Belgium, with twisted trunk and large leaves, was described by Aigret in 1905. An U. campestris suberosa tortuosa was marketed in the 1930s by the Hesse Nursery of Weener, Germany, by its description a contorted form of corky-barked field elm.
The Siberian Elm cultivar Ulmus pumila 'Pendula' is from northern China, where it is known as Lung chao yü shu. It was classified by Frank Meyer in Fengtai in 1908, and introduced to the United States by him from the Peking Botanical Garden as Weeping Chinese Elm. The USDA plant inventory record (1916) noted that it was a "rare variety even in China". It was confirmed as an U. pumila cultivar by Krüssmann (1962).
The hybrid cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Etrusca' was first mentioned by Nicholson in Kew Hand-List Trees & Shrubs 2: 139. 1896, as U. montana var. etrusca, but without description. The tree at Kew, judged by Henry to be "not distinct enough to deserve a special name", was later identified as of hybrid origin, U. glabra × U. minor 'Plotii', by Melville.
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 elm cultivar Ulmus 'Myrtifolia', the Myrtle-leaved Elm, first appeared in nursery and horticultural lists from the 1830s, as Ulmus myrtifolia and Ulmus campestris myrtifolia, the name Ulmus myrtifoliaVolxem being used at Kew Gardens from 1880. Lawson's nursery of Edinburgh appears to have been the earliest to list the tree. 'Myrtifolia' was listed by Nicholson in Kew Hand-List Trees & Shrubs (1896), but without description. It was later listed as a cultivar and described by Rehder in 1939 and by Krüssmann in 1962.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Dumont' was a very vigorous elm raised from a tree discovered by a gardener on the estate of M. Dumont at Tournay, Belgium, c. 1865.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Picturata' was listed in the 1880 catalogue of Simon-Louis, as Ulmus picturataCripps, suggesting an English origin in the nursery of Thomas Cripps of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who marketed elm cultivars in the 1860s. Clibrans' nursery of Altrincham, Cheshire, marketed it in the early 20th century as Ulmus campestris picturata variegata, their Ulmus campestris being English Elm. Elwes and Henry (1913) placed it under English Elm cultivars.
The hybrid cultivar Ulmus 'Androssowii'R. Kam., an elm of Uzbekistan sometimes referred to in old travel books as 'Turkestan Elm' or as 'karagach' [:black tree, = elm], its local name, is probably an artificial hybrid. According to Lozina-Lozinskaia the tree is unknown in the wild in Uzbekistan, and apparently arose from a crossing of U. densa var. bubyrianaLitv., which it resembles, and the Siberian Elm Ulmus pumila.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Penn Treaty' was raised by the Plant Sciences Data Center of the American Horticultural Society. Plants under that name were propagated by the Morris Arboretum, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, from grafts made in 1945 from a tree at Haverford College, itself a graft, planted in 1840, from the Shackamaxon Treaty Elm – the tree under which William Penn signed his treaty with Native Americans in 1682 in what was later named Penn Treaty Park, Kensington, Pa.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Dicksonii', commonly known as Dickson's Golden Elm, is a yellow-leaved tree raised in Chester in 1900 by Dickson's Nursery, which distributed it from the autumn of 1907 as 'Golden Cornish Elm'. 'Cornish Elm' was the name often given in error to Guernsey or Wheatley Elm by the local authorities who planted the latter extensively, an error which may have influenced the choice of name by Dickson's nursery. 'Dicksonii' is usually listed as a variety of Guernsey Elm rather than Cornish Elm, Bean giving 'Wheatleyi Aurea' as a synonym, and Hillier 'Sarniensis Aurea' and later U. × sarniensis 'Dicksonii'. Clibrans' nursery of Altrincham, however, described it (1922) as otherwise identical "in habit and constitution" to 'type' Cornish Elm. The Späth nursery of Berlin distributed it from c.1913 as U. campestris cornubiensis Dicksonii. The nursery Messieurs Otin père et fils of Saint-Étienne sold an Ulmus Wheatleyi aurea pyramidalis, with leaves marbled yellow, in 1882, earlier than Dickson's introduction.
References
- ↑ Green, Peter Shaw (1964). "Registration of cultivar names in Ulmus". Arnoldia. Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University. 24 (6–8): 41–80. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
- ↑ Santamour, Frank S.; Bentz, Susan E. (May 1995). "Updated Checklist of Elm (Ulmus) Cultivars for use in North America". Journal of Arboriculture. 21 (3): 122–131. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
- ↑ Peattie, D. C. (1950). A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, p. 240. Houghton Mifflin Company (HMCo) Field Guides, Boston, MA. ISBN 0-395-58174-5
- ↑ 'A giant elm', Horticulture 15 March 1913, Vol.17 Issue 11; p.375
- ↑ Nicholson, Katharine Stanley, Historic American trees (NY, 1922); p.42