W [ 1886 ]
ULMUS campestris.
Common Elm.
PENTANDRIA Digynia.
G en. Char. Cal. 4 or 5-cleft, inferior, permanent.
Cor. none. Capsule membranous, compressed, nearly
flat, with 1 seed.
Spec. Char. Leaves doubly serrated, rough, unequal
at the base. Flowers nearly sessile, four-cleft, with
four stamens. Fruit oblong, naked.
S yn . Ulmus campestris. Linn. Sp. PL 327. , Sm. FI.
Brit. 281. Huds. 109. With. 278. Hull. 5 7 .
Relh. 103. Sibth. 86. Abbot. 5 5 .
U. suberosa. Willd. Sp. PI. v. 1. 1324? Ehrh.
Arb. 142?
U. vulgatissima, folio lato scabro. Goodyer in Ger.
em. 1480. Rail Sÿn. 468.
C o m m o n in scattered woods and hedges in the southern
parts of England principally, flowering in April, and ripening
seed in June. It grows to a considerable height before it
blossoms, with a rugged erooked trunk and branches. The
wood is hard and tough, particularly durable in wet situations.
Hence it is preferred for coffins, administering to that folly
and vanity in humhlelife, which in higher ranks uses lead or
masonry, for the purpose of keeping the dead as long as
possible in odious noxious corruption, instead of mixing with
their pure parent earth.
The leaves come forth as the fruit ripens, and are alternate,
on short stalks, ovate inclining to rhomboid, unequal at the
base, doubly serrated, rough on both sides, from 1 to 3 inches
long. Flowers from distinct buds, in numefous dense round
clusters, almost sessile, with fringed bracteas. Calyx 4-cleft,
fringed, light red or brownish. Stamens 4, equal, smooth,
with large, roundish, purple, 2-lobed anthers. Stigmas
fringed on the upper edge, at length dilated at the other, and
united with the membranous smooth wings of the oblong
capsule.
Perhaps the U. suberosa of Ehrhart and Willdenow is the
cultivated Dutch elm, with corky bark, which seems to be
distinct from this, and has not been thought wild in England :
yet I suspect it may be the U. minor, folio angusto scabro, of
Goodyer and Ray, which I hope some Hampshire botanist
will ascertain, that we may know whether it ought to find a
place in our Flora.