40 THE JOURNAL OF EOTANT 



The other species of Ehn on which I have made observations has 

 been identified by Prof. Henry as 



(2) The Wych Elm, Llmus montana Stokes {=U, glabra 

 Hudson, non Miller). The name "Wych Ehn" seems to be asso- 

 ciated particularly with U. montana ; but I regard its application by 

 botanists to any species of Elm as undesirable, because its use leads 

 inevitably to confusion. So far as I can gather, the name Wych 

 Elm is applied promiscuously, in most parts of England, to any 

 species of Elm which is less common than whatever species happens 

 to be most prevalent in that district. It might, therefore, be written 

 more appropriately Which Elm ? This species is much less common in 

 mid-Essex than the foregoing. It grows almost exclusively in woods, 

 especially those in the damp bottoms of stream-valleys : very seldom 

 in hedo'erows. It never produces suckers, or to a very small extent 

 only ; its head is always more or less distinctly globular. In most 

 respects it is a larger, handsomer, and much longer-lived tree than the 

 foregoing. Unlike that species, it produces fertile fruit abundantly 

 in most years, if not m all. Its samaras are larger, and they hang 

 in conspicuous bunches, like hops ; for which reason it is often called 

 in Essex the '• Hop Elm." 



How completely fertile this species is, and ho\v unlike the fore- 

 going in this respect, is shown by an observation I made, on 20 May, 

 1911, on some forty or fifty trees (identified by Prof. Henry), 

 planted about 1860, beside a road, at Stisted, Essex. All were 

 covered thickly with samaras, fully developed, but still quite green. 

 Large numbers of these had been picked off by birds (probably 

 sparrows and greenfinches), which had snipped each into two halves 

 with their bills and had eaten the enclosed soft and succulent seed, 

 afterwards letting fall the mutilated green wings of the samaras, 

 thousands of Avhich covered the ground below the trees. How 

 thoroughly they did this may be judged from the fact that when, 

 a month later, I asked a friend to procure me some ripe samaras, he 

 reported that, having searched, he had been unable to find a single 

 one which the birds had not mutilated. A similar observation has 

 been made in Suffolk by Mr. Gr. T. Rope (see SeJhorne Magazine, 1914, 

 p. 207). Further, I was able to observe regularly two trees growing 

 on the edge of Broom Wood, about 250 yards from my house. These 

 I found fruited freely every year. They usually began shedding 

 their samaras before they had developed any foliage (as, for instance, 

 on 7th May, 1916). That the seed they bore was fully fertile is 

 shown by the fact that, when the undergrowth was cut about 1909, 

 a laro-e number took root. The result was that, when the wood grew 

 up again, that part of it adjacent to the two parent trees consisted 

 largely of young seedling elms, which soon attained a height of ten or 

 twelve feet. Nothing of this kind ever occurs, so far as ni}'' observa- 

 tion goes, in connection with the preceding species. 



No trees of U. montana grew actually upon my ground ; but at 

 least twenty grew within a few hundred yards, chiefly in or beside 

 woods ; and\ipon these the following observations were made : — 



