THE FLUWERTXa-TTMES OF SOME BRITISH ELMS 39 



back, sliows that eveiywliere the Common Essex Hedgerow Ehn is 

 producing this year an unusual crop of fruit. 



May 13. — The garden is strewn with samaras, most of which have 

 now fallen. Examination shows that some enclose seeds which look 

 quite capable of germinating, but that the majority are certainly 

 infertile. Clearly this is one of those 3^ears in which this species 

 bears fruit, though the interval since it last did so (in 19U9) is much 

 shorter than is supposed to be usual. Clement Keid, who speaks 

 of the tree as TI. campestris, gives the interval in England as usually 

 about forty years (see his Origin of British Flora^ 11). On this 

 occasion, however, the phenomenon is on a much smaller scale than 

 then, and presents slightly diiferent features ; for then the trees 

 retained their samaras until quite the end of May or beginning of 

 June and did not come into leaf until late in June. Mr. Gr. T. 

 Eope observed the same phenomena this year in connection with 

 the Elms (probably of this species) growing in the valley of the 

 Stour (north Essex and south Suffolk) (see Selhoriie Magazine^ 

 19U, 206). 



1915, Fehruary 14. — First observed flowers open, but a few only. 

 Many flowers have looked, for some time past, as though about to 

 oj)en. 



1916, January 15. — First observed the Elms in my drive to 

 be in flower, though they have probably been so for some days at 

 least. 



1917, Marcli 21. — The Elms in the drive have only just begun to 

 flower. They are doing so more sparingly and very much later this 

 year than in an}' year since I first began to observe them. 



1918, February 15 {ahoiot). — The Elms in both garden and drive 

 flowered at about this date and did so in considerable abundance, but 1 

 omitted to note the exact date when I observed the first flower. 



1919, February 9. — A very few flowers on one tree in the drive 

 are just opening ; but there is no flower on any of the other trees, and 

 no prospect of any. 



March 2. — The trees have borne practically no flower this je?ii\ 

 (The same was the case with all trees of this species in my 

 district.) 



The foregoing observations show that, in this species, the flowering- 

 time varies somewhat widely in different seasons. Thus, in 1912-13, 

 my trees flowered at the end of December : in 1917, at the end of 

 March — a variation of as much as three months. Such extremes 

 are, however, exceptional. The ordinary (?'. e., average) flowering- 

 time appears to range from the beginning of January to the begin- 

 ning of February. This accords well with the statement by Dr. Moss 

 (Camb. Brit. Flora, ii. 90 ; 1901) that this is " the first to come into 

 flower," its flowers " opening from January to March." (This work 

 is the only one I know of in wliich the flowering-times of tlie various 

 species are noted with any precision.) The foregoing evidence shows 

 also that this species is extremely variable as to the amount, both of 

 flower and of fruit, wliich it produces in different years. 



