''Ulmus villosa'', the cherry-bark elm or Marn elm, is one of the more distinctive Asiatic elms, and a species capable of remarkable longevity. It is endemic to the valleys of the
Kashmir
Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...
at altitudes of but has become increasingly rare owing to its popularity as cattle fodder. Mature trees are now largely restricted to temples and shrines where they are treated as sacred.
[Melville, R. & Heybroek, H. M. (1971). The Elms of the Himalaya. ''Kew Bulletin'' Vol. 26 (1). Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, London.] Some of these trees are believed to be over 800 years old.
[Wadoo, M. S. (2002). Brein - the Trees of Sufis, Saints and Reshies. ''Kashmir Observer'']
Description
Growing up to high, the tree is rather lightly and pendulously branched, the bark smooth with distinctive horizontal bands of
lenticel
A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the bark of woody stems and roots of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It functions as a pore, providing a ...
s, although it eventually becomes very coarsely furrowed.
[Photograph of bark of mature ''Ulmus villosa'', rogerstreesandshrubs.co]
villosa
/ref> The oblong-elliptic-acute leaves are less than long by broad. The wind-pollinated apetalous flowers appear in spring, and are particularly densely clustered, the white hairs covering the perianth and ovary contrasting with the purplish anthers. The samarae are elliptic, less than long and densely hairy on both sides.[Bean, W. J. (1981). ''Trees and shrubs hardy in Great Britain'', 7th edition. Murray, London.][White, J & More, D. (2003). ''Trees of Britain & Northern Europe''. Cassell's, London.]
Cherry bark elm bark.jpg, Bark
Villosa leaves.jpg, Leaves
Flowers of Marn Elm Ulmus villosa.JPG, Samarae
UvillosaSPA (1).JPG, Tree at Stanmer Park Arboretum, Brighton
Ecology
''U. villosa'' has a low susceptibility to Dutch elm disease and the elm leaf beetle
''Xanthogaleruca luteola'', commonly known as the elm-leaf beetle, is a beetle species in the family Chrysomelidae that is native to Europe but invasive in other parts of the world.http://cisr.ucr.edu/elm_leaf_beetle.html - Center for Invasive S ...
(''Xanthogaleruca luteola''), but a moderate susceptibility to elm yellows
Elm yellows is a plant disease of elm trees that is spread by leafhoppers or by root grafts."Elm Yellows." Elmcare.Com. 19 Mar. 2008 . Elm yellows, also known as elm phloem necrosis, is very aggressive, with no known cure. Elm yellows occurs in the ...
.
Cultivation
A tree once grown at Kew Gardens, London, attained a height of and was considered very elegant, although it tended to shed shoots after flowering heavily; it was felled after succumbing to Dutch elm disease. Two trees planted as part of the UK Forestry Commission's elm trials at the Westonbirt Arboretum in the 1970s also died, although the cause of death has not been recorded. The tree was propagated and marketed by the Hillier & Sons nursery, Winchester, Hampshire from 1971 to 1977, with sales totalling 38.[Hillier & Sons (1977). ''Catalogue of Trees & Shrubs''. Hillier, Ampfield, UK.][Hillier & Sons ''Sales inventory 1962 to 1977'' (unpublished).]
Plantings elsewhere in Europe are few and far between. A line of more than 20 trees survives at Wageningen in the Netherlands, collected by Heybroek in the Himalayas in 1960. Several trees also survive in the Gijsbrecht- Amstelpark area of Amsterdam and in the port.
Culture
Notable trees
In the UK, the Tree Register
The Tree Register, or more fully, the Tree Register of the British Isles (T.R.O.B.I.), is a registered charity collating and updating a database of notable trees throughout Britain and Ireland. It comprises a computer database which in 2022 conta ...
(TROBI) champions are at Bute Park
Bute Park and Arboretum () is a park in Cardiff, Wales. It comprises of landscaped gardens and parkland that once formed the grounds of Cardiff Castle. The park is named after the 3rd Marquess of Bute, whose family owned the castle.
History and ...
, Cardiff, × diameter at breast height (dbh) in 2005, and two at Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, both × dbh in 2009. The specimen planted in 1989 at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens
The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is an arboretum comprising 72 hectares (180 acres) accommodating over 42,000 trees and shrubs in about 12,000 taxa, notably a collection of oaks, camellia, magnolia and rhododendron.
The Gardens are located nor ...
at an exposed location on clay has grown more in width than height to form an amorphous (albeit healthy) mound of vegetation; in 2005 it was × dbh.
Accessions
North America
*Bartlett Tree Experts, US
Acc. no. 8384.
Europe
*Brighton & Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...
City Council, UK. NCCPG
Plant Heritage, formerly known as the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG), is a botanical conservation organisation in the United Kingdom and a registered charity. It was founded in 1978 to combine the talents of b ...
Elm Collection.[Johnson, Owen (ed.) (2011). ''Champion Trees of Britain & Ireland''. Kew Publishing, ]
* Grange Farm Arboretum, Lincolnshire. UK. Acc. no. 707.
* Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Acc. no. 1935-69805.
* Royal Botanic Gardens Wakehurst Place, UK. Acc. nos. 1935-69807, 1935-69809.
*Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Romsey
Romsey ( ) is a historic market town in the county of Hampshire, England. Romsey was home to the 17th-century philosopher and economist William Petty and the 19th-century British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, whose statue has stood in the t ...
, Hampshire, UK. Acc. no. 1989.2869, wild-collected from Sundarnagar
Sundar Nagar (also spelled as Sundernagar) is a town and a municipal council in Mandi district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
Formerly it was a princely state, known as Suket.
History
Sunder Nagar was formerly the seat of princ ...
Forest, Himachal Pradesh, India.
*Wijdemeren City Council
Wijdemeren () is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland, on the western border of the Gooi region.
Wijdemeren contains many lakes. In the north(east) ''Spiegelplas'' and ''Ankeveense Plassen'', in the (south)west ''Loo ...
Elm Arboretum, park De Vijnen, Nederhorst den Berg
Nederhorst den Berg () is a village in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It lies about 8 km northwest of Hilversum in the Vechtstreek area, near the Vecht river. Until 1 January 2002, it was a separate municipality; it is now part ...
, one tree planted 2018.
Nurseries
Europe
*Pan-Global Plant
Frampton-on-Severn
Frampton on Severn is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. The population is 1,432.
Geography
The village is approximately south of Gloucester, at . It lies on the east bank of the River Severn, and on the west bank of the ...
, Gloucestershire, UK.
References
External links
''Vegetative propagation of Ulmus villosa'', ingentaconnect.com
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q7879642
villosa
''Villosa'' is a genus of freshwater mussels, aquatic bivalve molluscs in the family Unionidae
The Unionidae are a family of freshwater mussels, the largest in the order Unionida, the bivalve molluscs sometimes known as river mussels, or simp ...
Flora of the Indian subcontinent
Ulmus articles with images
Elm species and varieties