Ulmus minor 'Plotii' | |
---|---|
Species | Ulmus minor |
Cultivar | 'Plotii' |
Origin | England |
The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Plotii', commonly known as Lock elm [1] [2] or Lock's elm [3] [4] (its vernacular names), Plot's elm [5] or Plot elm, [6] and first classified as Ulmus sativaMill. var. Lockii and later as Ulmus plotii by Druce in 1907-11 (see 'Etymology'), is endemic mainly to the East Midlands of England, notably around the River Witham in Lincolnshire, in the Trent Valley around Newark-on-Trent, [6] 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. [6] Two further populations existed in Gloucestershire. [7] [8] It has been described as Britain's rarest native elm, and recorded by The Wildlife Trust as a nationally scarce species. [9]
As with other members of the Field Elm group, the taxonomy of Plot Elm has been a matter of contention, several authorities, notably Professor Clive A. Stace in New Flora of the British Isles (2010), [10] [11] [12] recognizing it as a species in its own right. It is as U. plotiiDruce that the specimens held by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and Wakehurst Place are listed. R. H. Richens, however, contended (1983) that it is simply one of the more distinctive clones of the polymorphous Ulmus minor , conjecturing that it arose as an U. minor sport and that its incidence in the English Midlands may have been linked to its use as a distinctive marker along Drovers' roads. [13] : 54 [14] After Richens had challenged the species hypothesis, the tree was the subject of a study at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh by Dr Max Coleman (2000), which showed that trees a perfect fit with the 'type' material of Plot elm were of a single clone (genetically identical to each other). [15] [16] Arguing in a 2002 paper that there was no clear distinction between species and subspecies, and suggesting that known or suspected clones of U. minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, Coleman preferred the designation U. minor 'Plotii' [17] to U. minor var. plotii, a form used in late 20th-century publications. [18]
Alfred Rehder considered Ulmus PlotiiDruce to be synonymous with Jonathan Stokes' Ulmus surculosa argutifolia which was located at Furnace Mill near North Wingfield, Derbyshire, [note 1] before 1812. [19] [20] [21] Earlier still, a herbarium specimen labelled Ulmus angustissima collected in the 1670s by Edward Morgan, the Welsh botanist referred to by Evelyn in his Diary and colleague of Thomas Johnson, was identified by Druce in 1919 as Ulmus plotii. [22] Morgan's source location is not recorded; the nearest Plot Elm (recorded in the 20th century) to his North Wales home was in Shropshire. [6] [23] [24] [25]
Augustine Henry, though he equated the elm with Druce's, miscalled it Goodyer's Elm (U. minor 'Goodyeri'). The trees John Goodyer discovered were near the south coast at Pennington, Hampshire, some 200 miles away from centre of distribution of 'Plotii' and very dissimilar in structure. [26] [27] [28]
Richens stated that "a unilateral habit is the prime diagnostic feature of U. plotii." [29] This habit of branching tends to make Plot appear narrow from some angles. Before the advent of Dutch elm disease, this slender, "loose-habited", [30] monopodial tree [31] grew to a height of 30 metres (98 ft) and was chiefly characterized by its cocked crown comprising a few short ascending branches. Richens [32] likened its appearance to an ostrich feather, and noted "a general tendency for shoots to continue growth as long shoots". [13] : 4 Melville noted that Plot "is unusually variable in the type of shoot produced on normal branches of the crown. In some seasons trees produce occasional branches bearing only semi-long shoots – i.e. shoots intermediate in character between typical short-shoots [33] and the long extension shoots." [34] These semi-long shoots (also known as "proliferating short-shoots") have smaller, more rounded, more coarsely toothed leaves. [35] [36] : 652 [37] The bark remains smooth for several years. [13] A few longer lower branches were often a feature of its profile; [38] [39] the form of old trees will have depended on whether or not these survived cropping and pruning. The obovate to elliptic acuminate leaves are small, nearly equal at the base, [40] rarely > 4 cm in length, with comparatively few marginal teeth, usually < 70; the upper surfaces dull, with a scattering of minute tubercles and hairs. [41] The samarae [42] rarely ripen, but when mature are narrowly obovate, < 13 mm in length, with a triangular open notch. [26] [27]
Stokes' Ulmus surculosa argutifolia (1812) [: 'bright-leaved twiggy elm'], considered by Rehder a description of the elm pre-dating Druce's by a century, [19] was a tree with erect stem and branches throughout its length, and with small elliptic leaves, scabrous above and villose beneath, 1 to 2.5 inches long, that narrowed at the base, with margins meeting petiole nearly opposite each other. [20]
'Plotii' is very susceptible to Dutch elm disease.
The tree was first classified by the Oxford botanist George Claridge Druce in 1907-11, [6] [3] [44] [5] [45] [46] who found examples at Banbury and Fineshade, Northamptonshire, and published descriptions with photographs. [6] [5] [47] Druce named the tree for Dr Robert Plot, a 17th-century English naturalist. The older vernacular name 'Lock Elm', in use since at least 1742, [48] is said to be an allusion to the difficulty in working its timber. [49] Druce, however, wrote in 1913 that 'The wood is of very good quality, easy to work, and of a different texture from the Wych, Dutch, or English Elm, and has a general usefulness as a substitute for Ash or Wych Elm. The name Locks Elm can have no reference to any difficulty in working or dressing of the wood.' [4] 'Lock' may be related to its use in boundaries, as 'loc' is Old English for enclosure. [50] Lock Elm may have been one of the plants used in witchcraft to open locks and reveal hidden treasure. [51] Richens called the tree U. minor. var. lockii. [13] : 4 A. R. Horwood in his book British Wild Flowers – In Their Natural Haunts, called it the 'Northamptonshire Elm'. [52]
Bancroft referred to Plot's Elm as the 'East Anglian Elm', adding that it was often referred to as Wych Elm in the region; [53] however, she was almost certainly alluding to the Smooth-leaved Elm.
Plot-type elms had been noted as distinctive and were being cultivated in collections before they were botanically classified by Druce (1911), as evidenced by the two specimens at Westonbirt House [54] (mature by 1912 when Augustine Henry photographed one of them for his Trees of Great Britain & Ireland) and the tree at Eastington Park. [8] [55] Melville confirmed by field studies in the 1930s that Druce's specimens [5] were typical ('the type'), [6] but believing plotii to be a species and so to some extent variable [56] he also admitted to Kew 'Plot Elms' that varied from the type. [47] : 74 Cultivation in the decades that followed, influenced by Melville or sourced from Kew, allowed similar latitude. Following Coleman's findings about the type (2000) and his paper on British elms (2002), atypical Plot's Elms or 'Plot-type' elms are classified as Ulmus aff. 'Plotii'. These are very close to Plot's Elm and have a number of characteristics of the type, but their crowns are too broad and regular to match "true Plot". [15] [17] Melville himself, from the 1940s, had used the name Ulmus aff. plotii for elms close to Plot but outside the range of his variable species. [57]
Melville believed that the tree, scattered in distribution by the 20th century, was formerly more abundant. [6] [47] William Henry Wheeler in his History of the fens of south Lincolnshire, being a description of the rivers Witham and Welland and their estuary (1897) – a Plot area – wrote: "The tree of the Fenland and the one which attains to a very large growth is the elm". [58] [59] An uncommon tree even before Dutch elm disease, 'Plotii' has also been affected by the destruction of hedgerows and by urban development within its limited range. [9] [47] : 72–74 No mature 'type' trees are known to survive. One of the last known stands of semi-mature Plot elms, the Madingley Road elms [60] [61] [note 2] descended from those described by Elwes and Henry in 1913 [26] and by Richens in 1960, [62] was destroyed by the City Council of Richens's own Cambridge in road-widening c.2007–2014. [63] Unlike other forms of Field Elm, 'Plotii' is not a prolific generator of root suckers, [7] but it is not considered critically endangered. Conservation measures were drafted to preserve known stands and to encourage propagation, [9] though it is not clear if any of these were implemented.[ citation needed ]
"A landscape of such trees," wrote Richens in 1956, "such as occurs in parts of northern Northamptonshire, [64] is highly distinctive, and rather suggestive of a Japanese print." [65] "The Plot Elm is a beautiful tree," agreed Gerald Wilkinson, with "a silhouette no broader than Wheatley's." Wilkinson regarded as a "lost opportunity" the failure of East Midlands councils to cultivate this local elm in preference to exotic plantsmen's varieties. "Unhappily, the plumes of U. plotii are no longer a common feature of the landscape of the Trent above Newark and the Witham above Lincoln. Elms are now [1978] few in these areas that were once the home of Plot Elm. A wartime shortage of wood, altered drainage levels, land clearance for power stations, and machine farming have all combined into the familiar pattern of short-term efficiency and long-term degradation." [47] : 74 [note 3]
Elms labelled 'Plotii' were included in botanical collections such as Kew Gardens, [47] Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, University of Dundee Botanic Garden (the two latter by Edward Kemp), [66] and Belmonte Arboretum, Wageningen. [67] In the UK 'Plot Elm' was propagated and marketed by the Hillier & Sons nursery, Winchester, Hampshire, from 1949, with 38 sold from 1965 to 1977, when production ceased. [68] [69] Its presence in the Hillier nursery suggests that it was also represented in the Hillier Arboretum in the mid-20th century. The tree is now only planted occasionally owing to its susceptibility to Dutch elm disease. [70] [71] It appears in National Elm Collection lists, [72] but no specimen is known in the Brighton area (2015).
In continental Europe, 'Plotii' was distributed by the Späth nursery of Berlin from at least 1930 onwards, as U. minorMill. (U. sativaMoss), 'Goodyer-Rüster' [:'Goodyer Elm'], "a tall tree up to 30 m, of upright growth and [with] pendulous [branchlets]". [73] Späth knew Elwes and Henry's 1913 work, with its photograph of one of the Westonbirt trees so named, [73] so is likely to have sourced 'Plotii' either from Westonbirt or from one of Elwes and Henry's other source locations. (The real Goodyer's Elm was rediscovered by Melville in the later 1930s.) Rehder (1949) gives U. sativaMoss as a synonym of 'Plotii'. [19] A specimen stood in Zuiderpark, The Hague, in the mid-20th century. [74] The U. minor that stood in the Ryston Hall arboretum, Norfolk, [75] in the early 20th century [76] may have been Plot Elm, referred to as U. minor in the leading UK tree survey of the day, Elwes and Henry (1913). Späth sent numerous elms to Ryston, but the date when he began supplying Ulmus minor [:Plot Elm] is unknown. Three young specimens were reported (2014) from in a private garden at Seyne les Alpes, France. [ citation needed ]
In the USA, the " U. minor = U. sativa " introduced as "young grafted plants" to the Arnold Arboretum, Massachusetts, c.1915, may have been Plot Elm, as the arboretum's July 1915 article on European Elms reporting this accession is based on Elwes and Henry's 1913 book and nomenclature. [77] The young trees were established by 1918 and still present in 1922, the arboretum then considering them possibly the only specimens of this kind of elm in the US. [78] [79]
The type tree at Banbury was blown down in a gale around 1943; the timber was donated to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. [80] A mature avenue of the 'type' tree stood at Newton on Trent, Lincolnshire, in the early 20th century [81] and a notable quantity grew by the river Tove at Towcester and was present until at least 1955. [82] A large assemblage of Plot elm survives (2015) as a hedge of young trees near Caythorpe, Nottinghamshire. Two large trees survive near Calceby, Lincolnshire (2016). [83]
One of two late 19th-century specimens in the parkland of Westonbirt House, mature by 1912 when Henry photographed it for his Trees of Great Britain & Ireland, was said by Elwes to be the largest-known tree of its kind in Britain. [26] A clearer, winter photograph appears in Bruce Jackson's Catalogue of the Trees & Shrubs in the Collection of Sir George Lindsay Holford (1927). [54] It was 88 feet (27 m) high and 8.1 feet (2.5 m) in girth in 1921. [54] The 1921 girth is consistent (on circumference-growth estimates for elm [84] ) with a c.1820s planting date – that is, a decade after Stokes published his 1812 description, matching Westonbirt, and giving source-location, of his Ulmus surculosa argutifolia. [20] Elwes and Henry examined Druce's 'type' trees in Banbury and the elms of Madingley Road, Cambridge, as well as the Westonbirt specimens, and considered all three the same "species". Another notable specimen, described in Flora of Gloucestershire (1948) as U. plotiiDruce, stood in the grounds of Eastington House, Ampney St Peter, Gloucestershire, till blown down c.1947. [85] [55] [86]
Plot Elm hybridizes in the wild both with wych elm, [6] [13] to form U. × hollandica 'Elegantissima', and with U. minor to form Ulmus × viminalis . Melville noted that within the limits of the tree's distribution, hybrids are more common than Plot Elm itself. [6]
Elms of the Ulmus × viminalis group have been cultivated since the 19th century and have given rise to a hybrid cultivar of that name and to the cultivars 'Aurea', 'Marginata', 'Pulverulenta'. [36] : 659 The 19th-century cultivar 'Myrtifolia' was considered by Melville to be a probable U. minor × U. minor 'Plotii' hybrid. [88] The cultivar Wentworth Elm was identified by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as a hybrid of Huntingdon Elm and Plot Elm, though Melville dismissed the specimen growing at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as Huntingdon Elm. [88] The 20th-century dwarf elm cultivar 'Jacqueline Hillier' is thought to belong to the 'Elegantissima' group. [36] : 653 The cultivar 'Etrusca' was identified by Melville as a hybrid of U. glabra × U. minor 'Plotii'. [88]
... Cedric stopped the car when they were well out of the suburbs on the Hertfordshire side, at a place where a by-road ran up a slope of ploughland. At the top was a short row of elms whose crests were asymmetrical – shaped like one-sided foam on a tankard of beer, as if exposed to a prevailing breeze. |
– From E. B. C. Jones, Morning and Cloud (1932). [89] |
George Lambert's landscape 'View of Dunton Hall, Lincolnshire', painted in 1739 near Tydd St Mary within the native range of Plot Elm, shows a narrow monopodial elm-like tree with short branches and cocked crown, that may be a rare representation of Plot Elm in art. [90] [91] Tydd St Mary is between the rivers Nene and Welland, by both of which Melville had noted the presence of Plot Elm. [6] [92] [93]
What appear to be two Plot elms stand in the background of Ernest Arthur Rowe's painting 'Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, The Rose Garden' (1898). [94] Elwes (1913) mentioned Plot elm at Hagnaby Priory, East Kirkby, near Revesby Abbey. [26] Rowe (1863–1922) was known for his meticulous attention to botanical detail.
Walter Hutchinson's four-volume Britain Beautiful (1920), a pictorial celebration of the British Isles that includes a number of elm landscapes, contains a photograph by Herbert Felton, FRPS (1888-1968) of a notable Plot elm by King's Mill, Stamford, Lincolnshire, c.1910, a tall undamaged double-stemmed tree, with long lateral boughs like a sparse-branched cedar of Lebanon. [38] Of such well-grown specimens Melville wrote: "In old age Plot is matched by no other elm for character and individuality". [95]
A description in E. B. C. Jones's novel Morning and Cloud (1932) of asymmetrical elms in Hertfordshire, where Plot Elm was present, [96] [97] may be a rare literary reference to 'Plotii'.
It is not known whether what the Press called "lofty Italian elms" on the village green of Laxton, Northamptonshire (later identified as a Plot hub), the felling of which in 1937 caused a fracas between conservationists and police and led to a court-case, were U. plotii, perhaps miscalled by outsiders by analogy with similarly narrow Italian poplar. [99]
The field elm cultivar 'Atinia' , commonly known as the English elm, formerly common elm and horse may, and more lately the Atinian elm was, before the spread of Dutch elm disease, the most common field elm in central southern England, though not native there, and one of the largest and fastest-growing deciduous trees in Europe. R. H. Richens noted that elm populations exist in north-west Spain and northern Portugal, and on the Mediterranean coast of France that "closely resemble the English elm" and appear to be "trees of long standing" in those regions rather than recent introductions. Augustine Henry had earlier noted that the supposed English elms planted extensively in the Royal Park at Aranjuez from the late 16th century onwards, specimens said to have been introduced from England by Philip II and "differing in no respects from the English elm in England", behaved as native trees in Spain. He suggested that the tree "may be a true native of Spain, indigenous in the alluvial plains of the great rivers, now almost completely deforested".
The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Stricta', known as Cornish elm, was commonly found in South West England, Brittany, and south-west Ireland, until the arrival of Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. The origin of Cornish elm in England remains a matter of contention. It is commonly assumed to have been introduced from Brittany. It is also considered possible that the tree may have survived the ice ages on lands to the south of Cornwall long since lost to the sea. Henry thought it "probably native in the south of Ireland". Dr Max Coleman of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, arguing in his 2002 paper on British elms that there was no clear distinction between species and subspecies, suggested that known or suspected clones of Ulmus minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, preferred the designation U. minor 'Stricta' to Ulmus minor var. stricta. The DNA of 'Stricta' has been investigated and the cultivar is now known to be a clone.
Ulmus × hollandicaMill. , often known simply as Dutch elm, is a natural hybrid between Wych elm 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". Crosses between U. × hollandica and either of the parent species are also classified as U. × hollandica. Ulmus × hollandica hybrids, natural and artificial, have been widely planted elsewhere.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Belgica', one of a number of hybrids arising from the crossing of Wych Elm with a variety of Field Elm, was reputedly raised in the nurseries of the Abbey of the Dunes, Veurne, in 1694. Popular throughout Belgium and the Netherlands in the 19th century both as an ornamental and as a shelter-belt tree, it was the 'Hollandse iep' in these countries, as distinct from the tree known as 'Dutch Elm' in Great Britain and Ireland since the 17th century: Ulmus × hollandica 'Major'. In Francophone Belgium it was known as orme gras de Malines.
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.
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 Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Propendens', described by Schneider in 1904 as U. glabra (:minor) var. suberosa propendens, Weeping Cork-barked elm, was said by Krüssmann (1976) to be synonymous with the U. suberosa pendula listed by Lavallée without description in 1877. Earlier still, Loudon's Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum had included an illustration of a pendulous "cork-barked field elm", U. campestris suberosa. An U. campestris suberosa pendula was in nurseries by the 1870s.
Ulmus minor 'Rueppellii' is a Field Elm cultivar said to have been introduced to Europe from Tashkent by the Späth nursery, Berlin. Noted in 1881 as a 'new elm', it was listed in Späth Catalogue 73, p. 124, 1888–89, and in subsequent catalogues, as Ulmus campestris Rueppelli, and later by Krüssmann as a cultivar.
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 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 Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera Gracilis' was obtained as a sport of 'Umbraculifera' by the Späth nursery of Berlin c.1897. It was marketed by the Späth nursery in the early 20th century, and by the Hesse Nursery of Weener, Germany, in the 1930s.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Microphylla Pendula', the Weeping small-leaved elm, was first listed by the Travemünde nursery, Lübeck, and described by Kirchner in Petzold & Kirchner's Arboretum Muscaviense (1864), as Ulmus microphylla pendulaHort.. By the 1870s it was being marketed in nurseries in Europe and America as Ulmus campestris var. microphylla pendula.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Elegantissima' was the name given by A. R. Horwood in his Flora of Leicestershire and Rutland (1933) to an elm found in those counties and later identified by Melville as a natural hybrid between Wych Elm and Plot Elm. According to Melville, the hybrid occurs in the main areas of Plot Elm distribution, where it is more common than Plot Elm itself. The tree is sometimes known simply as the 'Midlands Elm'.
Ulmus × hollandica 'Wentworthii Pendula', commonly known as the Wentworth Elm or Wentworth Weeping Elm, is a cultivar with a distinctive weeping habit that appears to have been introduced to cultivation towards the end of the 19th century. The tree is not mentioned in either Elwes and Henry's or Bean's classic works on British trees. The earliest known references are Dutch and German, the first by de Vos in Handboek tot de praktische kennis der voornaamste boomen (1890). At about the same time, the tree was offered for sale by the Späth nursery of Berlin as Ulmus Wentworthi pendulaHort.. The 'Hort.' in Späth's 1890 catalogue, without his customary label "new", confirms that the tree was by then in nurseries as a horticultural elm. De Vos, writing in 1889, states that the Supplement to Volume 1 includes entries announced since the main volume in 1887, putting the date of introduction between 1887 and 1889.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Goodyeri', commonly known as 'Goodyer's Elm', was discovered by John Goodyer in 1624 at Pennington near the Hampshire coast between Lymington and Christchurch. No old specimens are known to survive, but the tree is perpetuated by numerous root suckers, notably in the lanes about the Alice Lisle public house in the New Forest hamlet of Rockford. The tree has suffered misidentification in the centuries since its discovery, firstly by Philip Miller in his 'Gardeners' Dictionary' of 1731, and later in the early 20th century by Augustine Henry and Marcus Woodward, who both confused the tree with Plot Elm, whose centre of distribution is in the East Midlands, some 200 miles away and of completely different appearance.
Ulmusaff. 'Plotii', or 'pseudo-Plotii', was the name first used by Melville in the 1940s for elms in England, of various genotypes, that resemble but do not completely match the 'type'-tree, U. minor 'Plotii'. It was taken up again following Dr Max Coleman's findings about Plot Elm (2000) and his paper on British elms (2002).
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Suberosa', commonly known as the Cork-barked elm, is a slow-growing or dwarf form of conspicuously suberose Field Elm. Of disputed status, it is considered a distinct variety by some botanists, among them Henry (1913), Krüssmann (1984), and Bean (1988), and is sometimes cloned and planted as a cultivar. Henry said the tree "appears to be a common variety in the forests of central Europe", Bean noting that it "occurs in dry habitats". By the proposed rule that known or suspected clones of U. minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, the tree would be designated U. minor 'Suberosa'. The Späth nursery of Berlin distributed an U. campestris suberosa alataKirchn. [:'corky-winged'] from the 1890s to the 1930s.
Ulmus × diversifolia, also known as the diverse leaved elm, was originally described by Melville in 1939 as a new species, U. diversifolia, though he later believed it a natural hybrid of Coritanian elm, Plot elm and Wych elm. He recorded its distribution in Hertfordshire, between Hatfield, Hertford and Watton-at-Stone, and in Suffolk, where it was common along the coastal plain from Ipswich and Felixstowe to Lowestoft and Beccles, occurring inland as far as Diss and Debenham, and probably extending further north into Norfolk and south towards Colchester, Essex. He accordingly referred to it as "the East Anglian elm".
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 field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis' (:'willow-like'), occasionally referred to as the twiggy field elm, was raised by Masters in 1817, and listed in 1831 as U. campestris viminalis, without description. Loudon added a general description in 1838, and the Cambridge University Herbarium acquired a leaf specimen of the tree in 1866. Moss, writing in 1912, said that the Ulmus campestris viminalis from Cambridge University Herbarium was the only elm he thought agreed with the original Plot's elm as illustrated by Dr. Plot in 1677 from specimens growing in an avenue and coppice at Hanwell near Banbury. Elwes and Henry (1913) also considered Loudon's Ulmus campestris viminalis to be Dr Plot's elm. Its 19th-century name, U. campestris var. viminalis, led the cultivar to be classified for a time as a variety of English Elm. On the Continent, 'Viminalis' was the Ulmus antarcticaHort., 'zierliche Ulme' [:'dainty elm'] of Kirchner's Arboretum Muscaviense (1864).
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