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Ulmus glabra, the wych elm, or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Urals, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese in Greece; it is also found in Iran. A large, deciduous tree, it is essentially a montane species, growing at elevations up to 1500 m, preferring sites with moist soils and high humidity. The tree can form pure forests in Scandinavia and occurs as far north as latitude 67°N at Beiarn in Norway, and has been successfully introduced as far north as Tromsø, Norway and Alta, Norway (70°N). Wych elm has also been successfully introduced to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland (61°N).
Ulmus × hollandicaMill. , often known simply as Dutch elm, is a natural hybrid between Wych elm Ulmus glabra and field elm Ulmus minor which commonly occurs across Europe wherever the ranges of the parent species overlap. In England, according to the field-studies of R. H. Richens, "The largest area [of hybridization] is a band extending across Essex from the Hertfordshire border to southern Suffolk. The next largest is in northern Bedfordshire and adjoining parts of Northamptonshire. Comparable zones occur in Picardy and Cotentin in northern France".
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Dampieri', 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 believed to have originated in continental Europe. It was marketed in Wetteren, Belgium, in 1851 as 'Orme de Dampier', then in the Low Countries in 1853, and later identified as Ulmus campestris var. nuda subvar. fastigiata DampieriHort., Vilv. by Wesmael (1862).
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.
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 'Monstrosa' [: "monstrous", "strange"], a shrub-elm with fasciated branching, is believed to have originated in France, where it was first listed by Lavallée in Arboretum Segrezianum (1877) as a form of Field Elm, Ulmus campestris var. monstrosa, but without description. Though its long slender 2 cm petiole is not a feature of wych elm U. glabraHuds., and is even less likely in a shrub form of this species, the wych-cultivar error arose early, perhaps because the Späth nursery of Berlin, using Ulmus montana both for some Ulmus × hollandica cultivars and for wych varieties, listed it c.1890 as Ulmus montana monstrosa. Hartwig in Illustrirtes Gehölzbuch (1892) followed with Ulmus scabra monstrosa, an error repeated by Krüssman (1962) and by Green (1964), with their U. glabraHuds. 'Monstrosa'.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Corylifolia Purpurea' was raised from seed of 'Purpurea' and described as U. campestris corylifolia purpurea by Pynaert in 1879. An U. campestris corylifolia purpurea was distributed by the Späth nursery of Berlin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Hesse Nursery of Weener, Germany, corrected the U. campestris corylifolia purpurea of their 1930s' lists to U. glabraHuds.corylifolia purpurea by the 1950s. Green listed 'Corylifolia Purpurea' as a form of U. glabra.
The putative Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Fastigiata Macrophylla' was first mentioned by Dieck in the Zöschen catalogue in 1885 as Ulmus montana forma fastigiata macrophylla, without description. Hartwig added a description in 1892. Berndt received "from a renowned nursery in Holstein" an Ulmus montana fastigiata macrophylla, possibly the same clone, in 1903, which he listed and described as Ulmus glabra fastigiata in Graf von Schwerin's Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft (1915).
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Fastigiata Variegata' was listed in the Baudriller nursery catalogue in 1880.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Flava' was listed in the Dieck catalogue of 1887 as U. scabra f. flava, but without description. The tree should not be confused with Ulmus flavaMichx. a probable misspelling of Ulmus fulva, a synonym of U. rubra, the Slippery or Red Elm from North America.
The putative Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Macrophylla' [literally 'long-leaved', though also 'large-leaved'] was first mentioned by Lavallée in 1877 as U. montana var. macrophylla (fastigiata). The Späth nursery of Berlin marketed an U. montana macrophylla in the late 19th and early 20th century; both Späth and the Hesse Nursery of Weener, Germany, supplied it in the 1930s. At that time, Ulmus montana was used both for wych elm cultivars and for hybrid cultivars of the Ulmus × hollandica group.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Rubra' was reputedly cloned from a tree found by Vilmorin in a wood near Verrières-le-Buisson in the 1830s. It was listed in the 1869 Catalogue of Simon-Louis, Metz, France, as Ulmus campestris rubra, and by Planchon in de Candolle's Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis (1873) as Ulmus libero-rubra: 'Orme à liber rouge' [:elm with red inner bark]. Elwes and Henry (1913) and Bean (1936) listed it as Ulmus montana [:U. glabraHuds.] var. libro-rubro, the former stating that the tree appeared "identical" to Simon-Louis's Ulmus campestris rubra. A specimen in the Zuiderpark, The Hague, was identified in 1940 as a wych elm cultivar, U. glabraHuds.libero rubro.
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 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 putative Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Latifolia' was identified in Audibert's Tonelle (1817) as U. campestrisLinn. [ = U. glabraHuds.] latifolia. The tree is reputed to have originated circa 1750 in or around Mechelen, and to have been widely planted throughout Belgium. A 1912 herbarium specimen from Oudenbosch, however, shows a hybrid leaf labelled Ulmus hollandica latifolia.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Fastigiata' was first listed and described as Ulmus glabra fastigiata, a narrow-crowned elm with large smooth leaves, by Petzold and Kirchner in Arboretum Muscaviense (1864). C. Berndt of the Berndt Nursery, Zirlau, Schweidnitz, described an elm of the same name in Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft, that he had received in 1903 "from a renowned nursery in Holstein" as Ulmus montana fastigiata macrophylla. A tree of that name had been listed by Dieck in 1885 without description. Berndt reported that his U. glabra fastigiata was "easy to confuse with U. montana superba", a tree "known in the Magdeburg region as Ulmus praestans", a statement confirming that, like that cultivar, his tree was a form of U. × hollandica. Karl Gustav Hartwig who received specimens of U. praestans from Kiessling of the Magdeburg city nursery in 1908, concluded (1912) that U. glabra fastigiataKirchner was indistinguishable in leaf or habit from U. praestans. An U. campestris glabra fastigiataArb. Musc. [ = Kirchner] was distributed by the Hesse Nursery, Weener, Germany, in the 1930s, where it was listed separately from U. praestans.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Fastigiata Glabra' was distributed by the Späth nursery, Berlin, in the 1890s and early 1900s as U. montana fastigiata glabra. Späth used U. montana both for cultivars of wych elm and for those of some U. × hollandica hybrids like 'Dampieri'. A specimen of U. montana fastigiata glabra in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was determined by Melville in 1958 as a hybrid of the U. × hollandica group.
Pyramidal or pyramid elm may refer to various cultivars of Wych elm Ulmus glabra and other elms. The following list is not complete:
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.