Ulmus × Hollandica

''Ulmus'' × ''hollandica'' Mill. , often known simply as Dutch elm, is a natural hybrid between wych elm (''U. glabra'') and field elm (''U. 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 f hybridizationis 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.Bean, W. J. (1981). ''Trees and shrubs hardy in Great Britain'', 7th edition. Murray, LondonElwes, H. J. & Henry, A. (1913). ''The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland.'' Vol. VII. 1848–1929. Private publication, Edinburgh.

The botanical name ''hollandica'' was first used for an elm variety by Plukenet in 1697 in describing a cultivar of this group now called 'Major'.

Description

In form and foliage, the trees are broadly intermediate between the two species.Collin, E. (2001). Elm. In Teissier du Cros (Ed.) (2001) ''Forest Genetic Resources Management and Conservation. France as a case study''. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Bureau of Genetic Resources. INRA DIC. France. F1 hybrids between wych and field elm are fully fertile, but produce widely variant progeny.Richens, R. H. (1983), ''Elm'' Many also inherit the suckering habit of their field elm parent. Both Richens and Rackham noted that examples in the East Anglian hybridization zone were sometimes pendulous in form.

File:Ulmus x hollandica. Ormsby Ring, South Ormsby, Lincolnshire (1).jpg, ''Ulmus'' × ''hollandica'' in Lincolnshire hedgerow
File:Flowers of Ulmus x hollandica. Ormsby Ring, South Ormsby, Lincolnshire.jpg, Nascent samarae of same

Pests and diseases

Some examples of the hybrid possess a moderate resistance to Dutch elm disease.

Cultivation

The hybrid has been introduced to North America and Australasia.

Notable trees

The great elm in The Grove of Magdalen College, Oxford, photographed by Henry Taunt in 1900, long believed to be a wych elm before being identified by Elwes as a 'Vegeta'-type hybrid, was for a time the largest elm known in Britain before it was blown down in 1911. It measured 44 m tall, its trunk at breast height being 2.6 m in diameter, and comprised an estimated of timber, making it the largest tree of any kind in Britain and possibly the largest north of the Alps.Editorial, ''Quarterly Journal of Forestry'' 5 (1911). 'An enormous elm'. 278–280. Royal Forestry Society. However, as Elwes pointed out, its calculated age would place its planting in the late 17th or early 18th century,Peter Fullerton, 'A Tale of Three Trees', Magdalen College Newsletter, 1998 long before the introduction of the Huntingdon elm, making the tree in question more likely to be a Chichester elm. A second tree nearby, described by Elwes as "similar in habit and foliage" and tall by in girth in 1912,Elwes, H. J. & Henry, A. (1913).
The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland
'. Vol. VII. p.1881–1882. Republished 2004 Cambridge University Press, was confirmed by Nellie Bancroft in a ''Gardener's Chronicle'' article in 1934 as a 'Vegeta'-type hybrid; it was propagated by Heybroek in 1958 and cultivated at the Baarn elm research institute as clone P41. Heybroek's clones P41 and P141, also from Magdalen College, were planted in a field trial in the Flevopolder in The Netherlands. The tree survived till the 1960s. Like the Queens' College Chichester elms in Cambridge, the Magdalen College trees were not observed to produce root suckers, though The Grove at Magdalen has long been a deer park, and any sucker growth is likely to have been cropped. The Oxford zoologist Robert Gunther attributed the larger tree's unusual size to the fact (discovered in 1926) that it had been growing on a phosphate-rich bone-bed, made up of the remains of mammoths and other prehistoric animals.

file:The_elms_in_Magdalen_College_grove_(ca._1870).jpg, The great elm in The Grove, Magdalen College, Oxford (ca. 1870)
file:The Magdalen College Wych Elm (1899).jpg, Magdalen College elm in leaf (1899)
Image:Huntingdon elm at Magdalen College, Oxford.jpg, Magdalen College elm (1906)
Image:The great elm at Magdalen College, Oxford.jpg, Magdalen College elm after being blown down (1911)

With a girth of 6.9 m (22.6 ft) and a height of , the ''Ulmus × hollandica'' hybrid elm on Great Saling Green, Great Saling, near Braintree, Essex, reckoned at least 350 years old, was reputedly the largest elm in England, before succumbing to Dutch Elm Disease in the 1980s; Elwes and Henry (1913) misidentified it as ''U. nitens'' (''Ulmus minor'').

Examples of mature survivors in the East Anglian hybridisation zone include those near Royston, Hertfordshire, designated 'Elm of the Year, 2004' by ''Das Ulmen Büro''. An example of the weeping form survives at Actons Farm, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.Google Maps
England - Google Maps
accessdate: July 27, 2016

There are two notable TROBI Champion trees in the British Isles, one at Little Blakenham, Suffolk, measuring d.b.h. in 2008, the other at Nounsley, Essex, high by d.b.h. in 2005.Johnson, O. (2011). ''Champion Trees of Britain & Ireland'',  p. 169. Kew Publishing, Kew, London. .

The so-called W. G. Grace Elm, a majestic spreading hybrid (labelled just "Dutch elm"), the last survivor (2009) of a ring of elms round East Oval, Ballarat, Victoria, was reputedly planted by W. G. Grace himself in 1874 during a tour by the England cricket team. It has been shown, however, to date from 1900. 'W. G. G.' had attained a spread round the middle of 31 m by 1982.

Cultivars

At least 40 cultivars have been recorded, although some may not have survived Dutch elm disease:

Others provisionally identified as ''Ulmus × hollandica'' include 'Scampstoniensis' and 'Virens (by Green); 'Purpurea' and 'Louis van Houtte' (by F. J. Fontaine); 'Escaillard' and 'Hillieri' (by Buisman); 'Rugosa Pendula' (by Arnold and Morton arboreta); and Späth's 'Fastigiata Glabra' (by Melville). Cultivars at one time or another identified as ''U.'' × ''hollandica'', but which may have suffered misidentification through confusion with ''U. glabra'' Huds. cultivars that share the same name include ' Fastigiata Glabra', ' Fastigiata Macrophylla', ' Latifolia', and 'Rugosa'. In the 19th century and early 20th, ''Ulmus'' × ''hollandica'' cultivars (as well as those of wych elm) were often grouped under ''Ulmus montana''. Republished 2004 Cambridge University Press,

File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (03).jpg, An unidentified ''U.'' × ''hollandica'' cultivar (not 'Vegeta') on Leith Links, Edinburgh (fruiting, April 2017)
File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (02).jpg, Samarae
File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (05).jpg, July
File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (07).jpg, Short shoot undersides
File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (06).jpg, Short shoot
File:AZ0114 Ulmus x hollandica. Hermitage Place, Edinburgh. (01).jpg, Bark


File:Ulmus glabra (smooth light-green leaved, red-barked), North Merchiston Cemetry, Edinburgh (4).jpg, An unidentified smooth-leaved ''U.'' × ''hollandica'' cultivar, North Merchiston Cemetery, Edinburgh (2016)
File:AZ0012 Ulmus. red-barked elm spring North Merchiston Cemetery.jpg, Same, fruiting
File:AZ0012 Ulmus. samarae red-barked elm North Merchiston Cemetery.jpg, Fruit
File:Ulmus glabra (smooth light-green leaved, red-barked), North Merchiston Cemetry, Edinburgh (1).jpg, Foliage
File:AZ0012 Ulmus. North Merchiston Cemetery, Edinburgh.jpg, Dried leaves, showing a longer petiole than that of wych elm
File:Ulmus glabra (smooth light-green leaved, red-barked), North Merchiston Cemetry, Edinburgh (3).jpg, Bark

In art

The elms in the Suffolk landscape-paintings and drawings of John Constable were "most probably East Anglian hybrid elms ... such as still grow in the same hedges" in Dedham Vale and East Bergholt. (His Flatford Mill elms were ''U. minor''.) ''Elm trees in Old Hall Park, East Bergholt'', showing a clump of these hybrids, is often considered the finest of Constable's elm-studies.R. H. Richens, ''Elm'', p.178

File:Constable. Suffolk.JPG, John Constable, ''Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk'', c.1830
File:John Constable 008.jpg, John Constable, '' The Cornfield'', 1826 (lane between East Bergholt and Dedham) R. H. Richens, ''Elm'', p.166)
File:Constable - Elm trees in Old Hall Park, East Bergholt, 320-1891.jpg, John Constable, ''Elm trees in Old Hall Park, East Bergholt'', 1817 (''Ulmus × hollandica'')

Accessions

North America

* Arnold Arboretum, US. Acc. nos. 325-81, 7614, 92-38
* Bartlett Tree Experts, US. Acc. nos. 1245, 1246
* New York Botanical Garden, US. Acc. no. 508/79
* Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens, US. Acc. no. 940414

Europe

* Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, UK. Acc. no. 1977.0615
* Wijdemeren City Council, Netherlands. Elm collection. Frans Halslaan, Loosdrecht (~1960)

Australasia

* Eastwoodhill Arboretumbr>
Gisborne, New Zealand, Gisborne, New Zealand. 24 trees, details not known.
* Waite Arboretumbr>
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. Acc. nos. 368, 339

Nurseries

North America

None known.

Europe

* Boomwekerijen 'De Batterijen

Netherlands.

Australasia

* Fleming's Nurser

Monbulk, Victoria, Australia

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulmus hollandica
Ulmus articles with images
hollandica
Ulmus hybrids
Taxa named by Philip Miller