Ulmus glabra

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Wych elm
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Ulmus glabra
Wych elm

Data Deficient  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Ulmaceae
Genus: Ulmus
Subgenus:
U. subg. Ulmus
Section:
U. sect. Ulmus
Species:
U. glabra
Binomial name
Ulmus glabra
Distribution map
Synonyms
List
    • Ulmus campestris L. Mill., Wilkomm
    • Ulmus corylacea Dumrt.
    • Ulmus elliptica Koch
    • Ulmus effusa Sibth.
    • Ulmus excelsa Borkh.
    • Ulmus expansa Rota
    • Ulmus leucocarpa Schur.
    • Ulmus macrophylla Mill.
    • Ulmus major Sm.
    • Ulmus montana Stokes, Smith, Loudon, Mathieu, With.
    • Ulmus nuda Ehrh.
    • Ulmus podolica (Wilcz.) Klok.
    • Ulmus popovii Giga.
    • Ulmus scabra Mill., C. K. Schneid., Ley, Ascherson & Graebner
    • Ulmus scotica Gand.
    • Ulmus suberosa Michx.
    • Ulmus sukaczevii Andronov

Ulmus glabra Hudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the

montane species, growing at elevations up to 1,500 m (4,900 ft), preferring sites with moist soils and high humidity.[3] The tree can form pure forests in Scandinavia and occurs as far north as latitude 67°N at Beiarn in Norway. It has been successfully introduced as far north as Tromsø and Alta in northern Norway (70°N).[4] It has also been successfully introduced to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland (61°N
).

The tree was by far the most common elm in the north and west of the British Isles and is now acknowledged as the only indisputably British native elm species. Owing to its former abundance in Scotland, the tree is occasionally known as the Scotch or Scots elm; Loch Lomond is said to be a corruption of the Gaelic Lac Leaman interpreted by some as 'Lake of the Elms', 'leaman' being the plural form of leam or lem, 'elm'.[5]

Closely related species, such as

Manchurian elm U. laciniata, native to northeast Asia, were once sometimes included in U. glabra;[6] another close relative is the Himalayan or Kashmir elm U. wallichiana. Conversely, Ulmus elliptica from the Caucasus, considered a species by some authorities,[7][8][9] is often listed as a regional form of Ulmus glabra.[10]

Etymology

The word "wych" (also spelled "witch") comes from the Old English wice, meaning pliant or supple, which also gives definition to

Hamamelis, commonly called “wych hazels”. [11]

Classification

Subspecies

Some botanists, notably Lindquist (1931), have proposed two subspecies:[12]

  • U. glabra subsp. glabra in the south of the species' range: broad leaves with short tapering base and acute lobes;[13] trees often with a short, forked trunk and a low, broad crown;
  • U. glabra subsp. montana (Stokes) Lindqvist in the north of the species' range (northern Britain, Scandinavia): leaves narrower, with a long tapering base and without acute lobes;[13] trees commonly with a long single trunk and a tall, narrow crown.[14]

Much overlap is seen between populations with these characters, and the distinction may owe to environmental influence, rather than genetic variation; the subspecies are not accepted by Flora Europaea.[15]

Description

The type sometimes reaches heights of 40 m (130 ft), typically with a broad crown where open-grown, supported by a short

apetalous. The fruit is a winged samara 20 mm long and 15 mm broad, with a single, round, 6 mm seed in the centre, maturing in late spring.[18][19]

  • Flowers
    Flowers
  • Nascent seeds
    Nascent seeds
  • Samarae, showing seed on stalk side of centre
    Samarae, showing seed on stalk side of centre
  • Leaves with extra lobes
    Leaves with extra lobes
  • Bark, estimated age 100 years
    Bark, estimated age 100 years
  • Bole of old specimen
    Bole of old specimen
  • Seedling, showing cotyledons (K)
    Seedling, showing cotyledons (K)

Pests and diseases

While the species is highly susceptible to

Irstea) in France has determined the genetic diversity within the species is very limited, making the chances of a resistant tree evolving rather remote.[24]

Still, a 300-year-old example growing in Grenzhammer, Ilmenau has been scientifically proven to be resistant to Dutch elm disease. [25]

The Swedish Forest Tree Breeding Association at

diploid form.[26]

In trials conducted in Italy, the tree was found to have a slight to moderate susceptibility to

Xanthogaleruca luteola.[27]

Cultivation

The wych elm is moderately shade-tolerant, but requires deep, rich soils as typically found along river valleys.[28] The species is intolerant of acid soils and flooding,[29] as it is of prolonged drought.[30] Although rarely used as a street tree owing to its shape, it can be surprisingly tolerant of urban air pollution, constricted growing conditions, and severe pollarding.

As wych elm does not sucker from the roots, and any seedlings are often consumed by uncontrolled deer populations, regeneration is very restricted, limited to sprouts from the stumps of young trees. The resultant decline has been extreme, and the wych elm is now uncommon over much of its former range. It is best propagated from seed or by layering stooled stock plants, although softwood cuttings taken in early June will root fairly reliably under mist.[31]

Wych elm was widely planted in Edinburgh in the 19th century as a park and avenue tree, and despite losses, it remains abundant there, regenerating through seedlings.[32][5] It was introduced to New England in the 18th century,[33] to Canada (as U. montana at the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa) [34][35] and Australia in the 19th century.[36]

  • Wych, The Meadows, Edinburgh, 1989
    Wych, The Meadows, Edinburgh, 1989
  • Burr-wych, Royal Terrace Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
    Burr-wych, Royal Terrace Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
  • Burl-wych, Stockbridge, Edinburgh, 2016
    Burl-wych, Stockbridge, Edinburgh, 2016
  • Wych, Learmonth Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
    Wych, Learmonth Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
  • Wych, Middle Meadows Walk, Edinburgh, 2016
    Wych, Middle Meadows Walk, Edinburgh, 2016
  • Fastigiate form of wych, Learmonth Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
    Fastigiate form of wych, Learmonth Gardens, Edinburgh, 2016
  • Ulmus glabra Huds., Pelhřimov, Czech Republic, 2017
    Ulmus glabra Huds., Pelhřimov, Czech Republic, 2017
  • Tromsø, Norway, June 2022
    Tromsø, Norway, June 2022

Uses

Lumber

Wych elm wood is prized by craftsmen for its colouring, its striking grain, its 'partridge-breast' or 'catspaw' markings, and when worked, its occasional iridescent greenish sheen or 'bloom'. The bosses on old trees produce the characteristic fissures and markings of 'burr elm' wood.[37] Bosses fringed with shoots are burrs, whereas unfringed bosses are burls.

  • Untreated wood grain of wych elm
    Untreated wood grain of wych elm
  • Waxed wood grain of burr wych elm
    Waxed wood grain of burr wych elm
  • Burr on wych bole, Royal Terrace Gardens, Edinburgh
    Burr on wych bole, Royal Terrace Gardens, Edinburgh
  • Burl on wych bole, Regent Road, Edinburgh
    Burl on wych bole, Regent Road, Edinburgh
  • Burls on trunk and branches of wych elm, Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh
    Burls on trunk and branches of wych elm, Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh
  • Crown galls (burls on outer branches) on wych elm, North Ayrshire
    Crown galls (burls on outer branches) on wych elm, North Ayrshire

Medicine

Medical properties of Ulmus campestris, Dijon, 1783

In 18th century France, the inner bark of Ulmus glabra, orme pyramidale, had a brief reputation as a panacea;[38][39] "it was taken as a powder, as an extract, as an elixir, even in baths. It was good for the nerves, the chest, the stomach — what can I say? — it was a true panacea."[40] It was this so-called "pyramidal elm bark" about which Michel-Philippe Bouvart famously quipped "Take it, Madame... and hurry up while it [still] cures."[40] It still appeared in a pharmacopeia of 1893.[39]

Notable trees

Ancient U. glabra in Styria, Austria

E. M. Forster cites a particular wych elm, one that grew at his childhood home of Rooks Nest, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, 16 times in his novel Howards End. This tree overhangs the house of the title and is said to have a "...girth that a dozen men could not have spanned..." Forster describes the tree as "...a comrade, bending over the house, strength and adventure in its roots." The wych elm of the novel had pigs' teeth embedded in the trunk by country people long ago and it was said that chewing some of the bark could cure toothache. In keeping with the novel's epigraph, "Only connect...", the wych elm may be seen by some as a symbol of the connection of humans to the earth. Margaret Schlegel, the novel's protagonist, fears that any "....westerly gale might blow the wych elm down and bring the end of all things..." The tree is changed to a chestnut in the 1991 film adaptation of Howards End.

The UK Champion listed in

The Meadows.[44]

In Europe, a large tree planted in 1620 grows at Bergemolo, 5 km south of

Highgrove Estate, and at Clapham, Yorkshire.[47]

Cultivars

About 40 cultivars have been raised, although at least 30 are now probably lost to cultivation as a consequence of Dutch elm disease and/or other factors:

NB: 'Exoniensis', Exeter Elm, has traditionally been classified as a form of U. glabra, but its identity is now a matter of contention.

Hybrids and hybrid cultivars

U. glabra hybridises naturally with

U. minor, producing elms of the Ulmus × hollandica
group, from which have arisen a number of cultivars:

However, hybrids of U. glabra and U. pumila, the Siberian elm, have not been observed in the field and only achieved in the laboratory, though the ranges of the two species, the latter introduced by man, overlap in parts of Southern Europe, notably Spain.[22] A crossing in Russia of U. glabra and U. pumila produced the hybrid named Ulmus × arbuscula.

Hybrids with U. glabra in their ancestry have featured strongly in recent artificial hybridization experiments in Europe, notably at

First World War, and were to prove vulnerable to the much more virulent strain of the disease that arrived in the late 1960s. However, further research eventually produced several trees effectively immune to disease, which were released after 1989.[51]

  • Wanoux = Vada
    .

Accessions

North America
Europe
  • [Held in nearly all arboreta]
Australasia
  • Eastwoodhill Arboretum [7], Gisborne, New Zealand. 8 trees, details not known.

In art

  • Wych elms, Samuel Bough, Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street, c.1878
    Wych elms,
    Samuel Bough
    , Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street, c.1878

See also

  • Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?
    – graffiti that appeared in 1944 following the discovery of the remains of a woman inside a wych elm in Worcestershire, England

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T61966807A61966819.en
    . Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. ISSN 0083-7792
    .
  3. ISBN 9789050112819
  4. ^ "Utbredelse - Naturhistorisk museum". Archived from the original on 2020-09-26.
  5. ^
    ISBN 9780521294621
  6. ISBN 9781108069380
  7. ^ Elwes, Henry John, & Henry, Augustine, (1913) The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland, Vol.7, pp.1863-1864 [1]
  8. ^ Bean, W. J. (1988) Trees and shrubs hardy in Great Britain, 8th edition, Murray, London
  9. ^ Krüssman, Gerd, Manual of Cultivated Broad-Leaved Trees & Shrubs (1984 vol. 3)
  10. ^ Richens, R. H., Elm (Cambridge 1983), p.279
  11. ^ Jacob George Strutt (1822). Sylva Britannica. p. 66. Full text of expanded 1830 edition.
  12. ^ Bertil, Lindguist (1931). "Two varieties of North West European Ulmus glabra". Botanical Society Report. 9: 785. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  13. ^
    S2CID 84736722
    .
  14. ^ bioportal.naturalis.nl L.1587168 Ulmus glabra Huds. subsp. montana (Stokes) Lindq., Thirsk, Yorkshire, 1937
  15. ^ Flora Europaea: Ulmus glabra
  16. ^ "Herbarium specimen - E00824735". Herbarium Catalogue. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Sheet labelled Ulmus scabra Mill. = Ulmus montana With.; "Herbarium specimen - E00824732". Herbarium Catalogue. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Sheet labelled Ulmus montana = Ulmus glabra Huds. RBGE specimen, 1900; "Herbarium specimen - E00824730". Herbarium Catalogue. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Sheet described as Ulmus glabra Huds. from Bridge of Allan, Scotland, 1899; "Herbarium specimen - E00824764". Herbarium Catalogue. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Cotyledon and seedling leaves, Ulmus scabra Mill. = Ulmus montana With.
  17. ISBN 978-1-906129-21-7
    .
  18. ^ Bean, W. J. (1981). Trees and shrubs hardy in Great Britain, 7th edition. Murray, London.
  19. ^ White, J. & More, D. (2003). Trees of Britain and Northern Europe. Cassell's, London
  20. ^ Forestry Commission. Dutch elm disease in Britain, UK
  21. ^ Brasier, C. M. (1996). New horizons in Dutch elm disease control. Pages 20–28 in: Report on Forest Research, 1996. Forestry Commission. HMSO, London, UK.
  22. ^
    S2CID 85380172. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2007-06-28. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  23. S2CID 4328001
    .
  24. ^ Solla et al. (2005). "Screening European Elms for Resistance to Ophiostoma novo-ulmi". Forest Science, 134–141. 51 (2) 2005. Society of American Foresters.
  25. ^ "In Ilmenau steht die einzige resistente Bergulme Europas". 15 March 2014. Archived from the original on 2022-07-01.
  26. S2CID 38868071
    .
  27. ^ Mittempergher, L; Santini, A (2004). "The history of elm breeding" (PDF). Investigacion Agraria: Sistemas y Recursos Forestales. 13 (1): 161–177. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2017.
  28. ^ Edlin, H. L. (1949). British woodland trees. Batsford, London.
  29. S2CID 89800637
    .
  30. ^ CAB International (2005) Forestry Compendium. CAB International, Wallingford, UK
  31. ^ Beckett, K. & G. (1979). Planting Native Trees and Shrubs. Jarrold & Sons, Norwich, UK.
  32. ^ Coleman, Max, ed., Wych Elm (Edinburgh, 2009)
  33. ^ Browne, Daniel Jay (1851). The Trees of America. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 481.
  34. ^ Saunders, William; Macoun, William Tyrrell (1899). Catalogue of the trees and shrubs in the arboretum and botanic gardens at the central experimental farm (2 ed.). Ottawa. pp. 74–75.
  35. ^ canadiantreetours.org
  36. ^ Spencer, Roger, ed., Horticultural Flora of South-Eastern Australia, Vol. 2 (Sydney, 1995), Ulmus, p. 103-118 [2]
  37. ^ Coleman, Max, ed., Wych Elm (Royal Botanic Garden publications, Edinburgh, 2009)
  38. ^ Simon Morelot, Cours élémentaire d'histoire naturelle pharmaceutique..., 1800, p. 349 "the elm, pompously named pyramidal...it had an ephemeral reputation"
  39. ^ a b Georges Dujardin-Beaumetz, Formulaire pratique de thérapeutique et de pharmacologie, 1893, p. 260
  40. ^ a b Gaston de Lévis, Souvenirs et portraits, 1780-1789, 1813, p. 240
  41. ^ The Brahan Elm, forestry.gov.uk
  42. ^ "The Woodland Trust" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 November 2005.
  43. ^ CEC information; tree may be seen on Google Streetview, beside Cavalry Park Drive, E. of Holy Rood High School.
  44. ^ Edinburgh Wych-elm photographs [3] [4]
  45. ^ Association of Nature Patriarchs in Italy: Piemonte - Olmo di Bergemolo, access-date: November 23, 2016
  46. ^ "Google Maps". Google.co.uk. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  47. ^ "CST Slovakia - News". Archived from the original on 2005-09-16. Retrieved 2006-08-04.
  48. ^ "Ilmenaus bekannteste und vermutlich Europas älteste Ulme fiel dem Unwetter zum Opfer". ilmenau.de. 2015. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  49. ^ Coleman, Max, 'Last Ent set to repopulate Glen Affric'; Botanics Stories, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 2024
  50. ^ Green, Peter Shaw (1964). "Registration of cultivar names in Ulmus". Arnoldia. 24 (6–8). Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University: 41–80. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  51. ISBN 978-1-4615-6874-2
    . Retrieved 26 October 2017.

Further reading

External links

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