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English Elm - Ulmus procera
Elm Family: Ulmaceae. The English Elm survives in small pockets in
Europe, the UK, and at scattered sites in the US and The British
Commonwetitleh.
This specimen was photographed at The Morton Arboretum at Lisle, Illinois,
USA.
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67-year-old English Elm |
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Ulmus procera, the English
Elm or Atinian Elm was, before the advent of
Dutch elm disease, one of the largest and
fastest-growing deciduous trees in Europe, often
exceeding 40 m in height with a trunk up to 2 m
in diameter. The largest specimen ever recorded
in England, at Forthampton Court, near
Tewkesbury, was 46 m tall (Elwes & Henry, 1913).
The leaves are dark green, almost orbicular, <
10 cm long, without the pronounced acuminate tip
at the apex typical of the genus.
Wind-pollinated, the small, reddish-purple
flowers are without petals, and appear in early
spring before the leaves. The tree does not
produce fertile seed, and propagation is
entirely by root suckers. |

These are the leaves of the American Elm, Ulmus
americana.
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Leaf: alternate, simple, ovate to oblong,
3 to 5 inches long, 1 to 3 inches wide,
margin coarsely and sharply doubly serrate,
base conspicuously inequilateral, upper
surface green and glabrous or slightly
scabrous, paler and downy beneath.
A survey of genetic diversity in Spain,
Italy and the UK revealed that the English
Elms are genetically identical, clones of a
single tree, the Atinian Elm once widely
used for training vines. although there is
no record of its introduction to Britain, it
probably arrived with the Romans, a
hypothesis supported by the discovery of
pollen in an excavated Roman vineyard. The
introduction of the tree to Spain from Italy
is recorded by the Roman agronomist
Columella in his treatise De Re Rustica,
written circa AD 50, meanwhile more recent
research has also identified it as the elm
grown in the vineyards of the Valais, or
Wallis, canton of Switzerland. |
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Bark |
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