The
Field Elm
''Ulmus minor'' Mill., the field elm, is by far the most polymorphic of the European species, although its taxonomy remains a matter of contention. Its natural range is predominantly south European, extending to Asia Minor and Iran; its northern ...
cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...
''Ulmus minor'' 'Goodyeri', commonly known as 'Goodyer's Elm', was discovered by
John Goodyer
John Goodyer (1592–1664) was a botanist who lived in south-east Hampshire, England, all his life. He amassed a large collection of botanical texts which were bequeathed to Magdalen College, Oxford, and translated a number of classical texts ...
in 1624 at
Pennington near the Hampshire coast between
Lymington
Lymington is a port town on the west bank of the Lymington River on the Solent, in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. It faces Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to which there is a car ferry service operated by Wightlink. It is within the ...
and
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...
.
No old specimens are known to survive, but the tree is perpetuated by numerous root suckers, notably in the lanes about the
Alice Lisle
Alice, Lady Lisle (September 16172 September 1685), commonly known as Alicia Lisle or Dame Alice Lyle, was a landed lady of the English county of Hampshire, who was executed for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion at t ...
public house in the
New Forest
The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, fea ...
hamlet of
Rockford.
[Chatters, C. (2009). ''Flowers of the Forest - People and Plants in the New Forest National Park''. Wildguides. ] The tree has suffered misidentification in the centuries since its discovery, firstly by
Philip Miller
Philip Miller FRS (1691 – 18 December 1771) was an English botanist and gardener of Scottish descent. Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden for nearly 50 years from 1722, and wrote the highly popular ''The Gardeners Dicti ...
in his 'Gardeners' Dictionary' of 1731,
[Miller, P. (1731). ''The Gardener's & Botanist's Dictionary'', Vol. II, part 2 , Q–Z, p. 33. Private publication.] and later in the early 20th century by
Augustine Henry
Augustine Henry (2 July 1857 – 23 March 1930) was a British-born Irish plantsman and sinologist. He is best known for sending over 15,000 dry specimens and seeds and 500 plant samples to Kew Gardens in the United Kingdom. By 1930, he was a re ...
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.
[Elwes, H. J. & Henry, A. (1913). ''The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland''. Vol. VII. 1848–1929. Private publication]
/ref>
Augustin Ley prepared a herbarium specimen from Goodyer's Elm (without using that name) near Lymington in 1882, calling the trees just ''Ulmus glabra'' Mill..[Herbarium specimen 293275, herbariaunited.org, ''Ulmus glabra'' Mill., Lymington; A. Ley](_blank)
/ref> Ronald Melville (botanist), Melville rediscovered Goodyer's Elm in 1937, publishing an account of it in 1938 and describing it as a form of Cornish Elm
The field elm cultivar ''Ulmus minor'' 'Stricta', known as Cornish elm, was commonly found in South West England (Cornwall and West Devon), Brittany, and south-west Ireland, until the arrival of Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. The origin o ...
.[
]
Synonymy
* ''Ulmus stricta'' var. ''goodyeri'' Melville[
* ''Ulmus minor'' subsp. ''angustifolia'' var. ''goodyeri'' Richens][Richens, R. H., ''Elm'' (Cambridge 1983)]
Description
The tree is chiefly distinguished by its short bole and low, spreading branches, quite unlike any other British elm. In other respects, notably its small leaves <3 cm long by 1.5 cm wide, the tree is very similar to Cornish Elm ''Ulmus minor'' 'Stricta'.[
File:Goodyer Elm leaves.jpg, Goodyer's Elm leaves and £1 coin
File:Goodyer Elm seeds.jpg, Goodyer's Elm samarae
]
Pests and diseases
Goodyer's Elm is very susceptible to Dutch elm disease
Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...
.
Cultivation
The tree is not known to be in cultivation in the UK, with the exceptions of two specimens introduced to arboreta 2012–16 (see 'Accessions'), nor is it known to have been introduced to continental Europe, North America or Australasia.
Notable trees
A small but sexually mature tree survives beneath an oak near the Alice Lisle public house at Rockford, its trunk severely arched by its search for light.[Google Maps]
Goodyer Elm at Rockford - Google Maps (Dec 2008)
accessdate: December 08, 2016
Accessions
Europe
*Grange Farm Arboretum
The Grange Farm Arboretum is a small private arboretum comprising 3 hectares accommodating over 800 trees, mostly native and ornamental species or cultivars, notably oaks, ashes, walnuts and elms, growing on a calcareous loam.Ostler, J. (2009) ...
, Sutton St James
Sutton St James is a village and civil parish in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England, about south-west of Long Sutton.
Lying in the Lincolnshire Fens, Sutton St James did not exist at the time of the 1086 ''Domesday Book''. Su ...
, Spalding, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
, UK. As ''U. minor'' subsp. ''angustifolia'' var. ''goodyeri''. Acc. no. 1081.
* Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Romsey, Hants., UK. Acc. no. 2016.0400
References
External links
* Sheet labelled ''U. cornubiensis'' Weston var. ''Goodyeri'' (Melville) from Pennington, Hampshire
Pennington is a ward (electoral and ecclesiastical) in the New Forest District, New Forest district of Hampshire, England, which is defined based on the boundaries of the earlier manor. Pennington Village is at the centre of the ward, with Upper ...
, 1937 (leaves)
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' var. ''Goodyeri'' (Melville) from Pennington, Hampshire, 1938 (flowers and leaves)
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
Bashley is a chapelry in the New Forest (in the south west of Hampshire) England. It takes up the north of New Milton civil parish of a type having a town council, and is a semi-rural community in New Forest District, to which it contributes ab ...
(samarae)
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire (leaves)
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
* Sheet labelled ''U. stricta'' Lindl. var. ''Goodyeri'', from Bashley, Hampshire
{{Elm species, varieties, hybrids, hybrid cultivars and species cultivars , state=collapsed
Field elm cultivar
Flora of Great Britain
Trees of Europe
Ulmus articles with images
Ulmus