The Wych Elm

Wych Elm

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...

 Ulmus glabra cultivar 'Monstrosa' is believed to have originated in France.

Description

The tree was described as a compact shrub; branchlets often fasciated, with leaves 5 cm to 8 cm long, partly pitcher-shaped at the base, and on slender stalks < 25 mm long .

Cultivation

Probably extinct. A specimen at the Ryston Hall http://www.rystonhall.co.uk/, Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, arboretum, obtained from the Späth nursery

Späth nursery

The Späth family created one of the world's most notable plant nurseries of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The nursery had been founded in 1720 by Christoph Späth but removed to the erstwhile district of Baumschulenweg in south-east Berlin in 1863 when Franz Ludwig Späth succeeded his father...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 before 1914 , was killed by the earlier strain of Dutch elm disease prevalent in the 1930s.

Synonymy

• Ulmus campestris (: glabra) var. monstrosa: Lavallée, Arb. Segrez 235, 1877, and Hartwig, Ill. Geholzb. ed. 2, 294, 1892.
• Ulmus scabra (: glabra) var. monstrosa Hort.; Krüssmann, Handb. Laubgeh. 2: 536, 1962, as a cultivar.