| Ulmus glabra 'Australis' | |
|---|---|
| Species | Ulmus glabra |
| Cultivar | 'Australis' |
| Origin | England |
Ulmus glabra 'Australis' is a Wych Elm cultivar described by Loudon in 1838, [1] from a tree in the Royal Horticultural Society garden, as U. montana var. australisHort.. [2]
Loudon's 'Australis' is not to be confused with Henry's U. campestris 'Australis', a tall southern European field elm or hybrid cultivar with an oval leaf and longer petiole. [3]
Loudon said the variety had "rather smaller leaves, and a more pendulous habit, than the species", but did "not appear to be different in any other respect".
See under Ulmus glabra .
No specimens are known to survive, though wych elms of a similar type sometimes occur among avenue and park plantings in Edinburgh.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Smithii', commonly known as the Downton Elm, was one of a number of cultivars arising from the crossing of the Wych Elm U. glabra with the Field Elm U. minor. The tree was originally planted at Downton Castle near Ludlow, as one of a batch, not all of them pendulous in habit, raised at Smith's Nursery, Worcester, England, from seeds obtained from a tree in Nottingham in 1810.
Ulmus 'Exoniensis', the Exeter elm, was discovered near Exeter, England, in 1826, and propagated by the Ford & Please nursery in that city. Traditionally believed to be a cultivar of the Wych Elm U. glabra, its fastigiate shape when young, upward-curving tracery, small samarae and leaves, late leaf-flush and late leaf-fall, taken with its south-west England provenance, suggest a link with the Cornish Elm, which shares these characteristics.
Fine examples around the cathedral in 2007
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Crispa' [:'curled', the leaf margin], sometimes known as the Fernleaf Elm, arose before 1800 and was first listed by Willdenow as U. crispa (1809). Audibert listed an U. campestrisLinn. 'Crispa', orme à feuilles crépues [:'frizzy-leaved elm'], in 1817, and an Ulmus urticaefolia [:'nettle-leaved elm'] in 1832; the latter is usually taken to be a synonym. Loudon considered the tree a variety of U. montana (1838). In the 19th century, Ulmus × hollandica cultivars, as well as those of Wych Elm, were often grouped under Ulmus montana. Elwes and Henry (1913) listed 'Crispa' as a form of wych elm, but made no mention of the non-wych samara.
The putative hybrid cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Serpentina' is an elm of unknown provenance and doubtful status. Henry identified it as intermediate between U. glabra and U. minor, a view accepted by Bean and by Melville, who believed that the specimens at Kew bearing the name 'Serpentina' were U. glabra "introgressed by U. carpinifolia" [: U. minor] and were similar to but "distinct from 'Camperdownii'".
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Albo-Variegata' was first mentioned by Weston in 1770 as U. glabra var. variegata. An U. campestris latifolia albo-variegataHort. was distributed by the Späth nursery, Berlin, from the 1890s to the 1930s.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Australis' [:'southern'], reputedly endemic to south-eastern France, Switzerland and Italy, is a little-known tree considered by various authorities to have been a variety of Ulmus minor or Ulmus × hollandica.
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 dwarf wych elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Nana', a very slow growing shrub that with time forms a small tree, is of unknown origin. It was listed in the Simon-Louis 1869 catalogue as Ulmus montana nana. Henry (1913), referring his readers to an account of the Kew specimen in the journal Woods and Forests, 1884, suggested that it may have originated from a witch's broom. It is usually classified as a form of Ulmus glabra and is known widely as the 'Dwarf Wych Elm'. However, the ancestry of 'Nana' has been disputed in more recent years, Melville considering the specimen once grown at Kew to have been a cultivar of Ulmus × hollandica.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Nigra', commonly known as the Black Irish Elm, was found in the Kilkenny area c.1770 by the father of nurseryman John Robertson of Kilkenny, who later cultivated it. Robertson stated that he had not seen the form outside Ireland. It was listed by Loddiges (1830) as Ulmus nigra, and described by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), as Ulmus montana nigra. 'Nigra' is not mentioned in either Elwes and Henry's or Bean's classic works on British trees.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Ramulosa' [: 'twiggy'], Floetbeck elm, was raised in the Floetbeck nurseries, Hamburg, by James Booth & Son, and was first mentioned by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838) as Ulmus montana glabra var. ramulosaBooth, but without description. It does not, however, appear in Booth's 1838 list. Loudon listed the tree in a group including Downton Elm, Scampston Elm, and Ludlow Elm, so Green's wych cultivar attribution appears to be an error.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Rugosa' [:'wrinkled', the leaves], was first listed in Audibert's Tonelle (1817), as "U. campestris Linn. 'Rugosa' = orme d'Avignon [Avignon elm] ", but without description. A description followed in the Revue horticole, 1829. Green (1964) identified this cultivar with one listed by Hartwig and Rümpler in Illustrirtes Gehölzbuch (1875) as Ulmus montana var. rugosaHort.. A cultivar of the same name appeared in Loddiges' catalogue of 1836 and was identified by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838) as Ulmus montana var. rugosaMasters, Masters naming the tree maple-bark elm. Ulmus montana was used at the time both for wych cultivars and for some cultivars of the Ulmus × hollandica group.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Cucullata', the Hooded elm, was listed by Loddiges of Hackney, London, in their catalogue of 1823 as Ulmus campestris cucullata, and later by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), as U. campestris var. cucullata.
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 hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Superba' is one of a number of intermediate forms arising from the crossing of the Wych Elm U. glabra with a variety of Field Elm U. minor. Boulger tentatively (1881) and Green more confidently (1964) equated it with a hybrid elm cultivated in the UK by Masters at Canterbury in the early 19th century, known as "Masters' Canterbury Seedling" or simply the Canterbury Elm. Loudon examined a specimen sent by Masters and considered it a hybrid, calling it U. montana glabra major.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Scampstoniensis', the Scampston Elm or Scampston Weeping Elm, is said to have come from Scampston Hall, Yorkshire, England, before 1810. Loudon opined that a tree of the same name at the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden in 1834, 18 feet (5.5 m) high at 8 years old "differed little from the species". Henry described the tree, from a specimen growing in Victoria Park, Bath, as "a weeping form of U. nitens" [:Ulmus minor ]; however Green considered it "probably a form of Ulmus × hollandica". Writing in 1831, Loudon said that the tree was supposed to have originated in America. U. minor is not, however, an American species, so if the tree was brought from America, it must originally have been taken there from Europe. There was an 'American Plantation' at Scampston, which may be related to this supposition. A number of old specimens of 'Scampstoniensis' in this plantation were blown down in a great gale of October 1881; younger specimens were still present at Scampston in 1911.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis Betulaefolia' (:'birch-leaved') is an elm tree of uncertain origin. An U. betulaefolia was listed by Loddiges of Hackney, London, in the catalogue of 1836, an U. campestris var. betulaefolia by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), and an U. betulifoliaBooth by the Lawson nursery of Edinburgh. Henry described an U. campestris var. betulaefolia at Kew in 1913, obtained from Fulham nurseryman Osborne in 1879, as "scarcely different from var. viminalis ". Melville considered the tree so named at Kew a form of his U. × viminalis, while Bean (1988), describing U. 'Betulaefolia', likewise placed it under U. 'Viminalis' as an apparently allied tree. Loudon and Browne had noted that some forms of 'Viminalis' can be mistaken for a variety of birch. An U. campestris betulaefolia was distributed by Hesse's Nurseries, Weener, Germany, in the 1930s.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Concavaefolia', a form with up-curling leaves, was listed in Beissner's Handbuch der Laubholz-Benennung (1903) as Ulmus montana cucullataHort. [:'hooded', the leaf], a synonym of the Ulmus scabraMill. [:glabraHuds.] var. concavaefolia of herbarium specimens. An Ulmus campestris cucullata, of uncertain species, had appeared in Loddiges' 1823 list, but Loudon's brief description (1838) of concave- and hooded-leaved elms was insufficient for later botanists to distinguish them. The earliest unambiguous description appears to be that of Petzold and Kirchner in Arboretum Muscaviense (1864).
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Viminalis' [:osier-leaved] was listed by the Späth nursery of Berlin as Ulmus scabraMill. var. viminalis in 1890 and as Ulmus montana viminalis from 1892. Though Späth's catalogues stated that it was "also distributed under the name planera aquatica", it remained in his lists under 'elm' and was accessioned by the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, and by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as an elm cultivar. A similar misidentification occurred in the mid-20th century, when the Siberian elm cultivar Ulmus pumila 'Poort Bulten' was for many years commercially propagated under the name Planera aquatica or 'water elm'. As the leaves of osier or Salix viminalis, however, differ markedly from those of Planera aquatica, being long, thin and tapering at both ends, Spath's name 'Viminalis' for this elm cultivar confirms that its leaves were not Planera-like. The probable explanation for the early distribution name is that Planera was the old name for Zelkova, a close relative of elm with willow-like leaves. It is therefore unlikely that 'Viminalis' was related in any way to the 19th-century elm cultivar Ulmus 'Planeroides'.
The wych elm cultivar Ulmus glabraHuds. 'Superba', Blandford Elm, with unusually large leaves, was raised by Gill's of Blandford Forum, Dorset, in the early 1840s as Ulmus montana superba and was quickly distributed to other UK nurseries. It was confirmed as a form of wych, and first described, by Lindley in The Gardeners' Chronicle, 1845, later descriptions being added by Gill (1845) and Morren (1848), who called it U. montana var. superba. Morren had adopted the name 'Superba' from the Fulham nurseryman Osborne in 1844, who supplied him with the tree – presumably one of the nurseries supplied by Gill. Morren states that 'Superba', already in cultivation in England, was introduced to Belgium by Denis Henrard of Saint Walburge, Liège, that in 1848 it had been present in Belgium for only three years, and that this variety was the one described as 'Superba' by Osborne, whom Henrard had visited at his nursery in Fulham in September 1844. 'Blandford Elm', with leaves of the same dimensions, was soon for sale in the USA.