55G 



VLMAC^M. 



ULMACE^. 



CORTEX ULMI. 



Elm Bark; ¥, Ecorce d'Orme; G. Ulmenrinde, RuderrmcU, 



r 



Botanical Origin — JJlmus campestris Smith, the Common Elm, a 

 stately tree, widely diffused over Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, 

 southward to Northern Africa and Asia Minor, and eastward as far as 

 Amurland, Northern China, and Japan. It is probably not truly 

 indigenous to Great Britain ; but the Wyeh Elm, U. montana With., 

 is certainly wild in the northern and western counties ;^ the latter is, 

 according to Schiibeler, the only species indigenous to Norway. 



History— The classical writers, and especially Dioscorides, were 

 familiar with the astringent properties of the bark of TrreXea, by which 

 name Uhnus campestris is understood. Imaginary virtues are ascribed 

 by Pliny to the bark and leaves of Ulmus. Elm bark is frequently 

 prescribed in the English Leech Books of the II th century, at which 

 period a great many plants of Southern Europe had already been 

 introduced into Britain.^ Its use is also noticed in Turner's Herbal 

 (1568) and in Parkinson's Theater of Plants (1640), the author of the 

 latter remarking that " all the parts of the Elme are of much use in 

 Physicke." 



In the Scandinavian antiquity the fibrous bark of Ulmus montana 

 used to be made up into ropes.' 



Description — Elm bark for use in medicine should be removed from 

 the tree in early spring, deprived of its rough corky outer coat, and then 

 dried. Thus prepared, it is found in the shops in the form of broad 

 flattish pieces, of a rusty yellowish colour, and striated surface especially 

 on the inner side. It is tough and fibrous, nearly inodorous, and has a 

 woody, slightly astringent taste. 



Microscopic Structure— The liber, which is the only officinal part, 

 consists of thick-walled, tangentially extended parenchyme, in which 

 there are some large cells filled with mucilage, while the rest contain a 

 red-brown colouring matter. The mucilage forms a stratified deposit 

 within the cell. Large bast-bundles, arranged in irregular rows, alternate 

 with the parenchyme, and are intersected by narrov^, reddish, medullary 

 rays consisting of 2 or 3 rows of cells. The bast-bundles contain 

 numerous long tubes about 80 mkm. thick, with narrow cavities; anc 

 besides these, somewhat larger tubes with porous transverse "' 

 (cribriform vessels). Each cubic cell of the neighbouring bast-parcn- 

 chyme encloses a large crystal, seldom well defined, of oxalate 

 calcium. 



walls 



Oil tlie word elm, Br. Prior remarki 

 that It 13 nearly identical in all the Ger- 

 manic ami Scandinavian dialects, yet does 

 not find Its i-oot in any of them, tut is an 

 adaptation of the Latin U/mus.-Pojnilar 

 ^ameso/Bnh,h Plants, ed. 2. 1870. 71. 



Leechdonis, Worlcumihirf and Starcraft 

 of Early England, edited by Rev, 0. 



4 



,_ ^p, 70 oi). 127 

 Cockayne, ii. (l8Go) PP- 13. ^'-Jf.' both 



and p. xii. -In the Angfo-Saxon rec P^s^^j^j^ 

 ElniMuX Wyrh Ww are named intne 



Elmwydd or Ilwyf and Ulmus ru 



Ilwyf Rhufain, are met ^"''f^.^^egen^, 

 » Schiibeler, PJlanzenwelt ^orv.ej 



1873-75, p. 216. 



