38 JOHN GOODYER 



Mr. Russell told me on my recent visit to Stubbers, it is 

 the tree which is still locally known in that part of Essex 

 as the ' Witch Elm ', a name which is thus proved to have 

 survived locally since Elizabethan times. Goodyer named 

 it ' Vlmus folio glabro ' or Smooth-leaved Elm, a name that 

 has been adopted by Miller in the form of Ulmus glabra, 

 the name by which it is still widely known, although Elwes 

 prefers the name U. iiitens Moench. for it. 



Systematists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 

 have brought the species of Elms into such a state of 

 confusion that it is a relief once more to oret back to the 

 simpler system of Goodyer, whose accounts of the four 

 species of Elms were doubtless redrafted in 1632, but the 

 original observations were much earlier. Johnson prefaces 

 the descriptions with a short introduction : 



' Our Author [Gerard] only described two Elms, and tliose not so 

 accurately but that I thinke I shall give the Reader content, in 

 exchanging them for better received from M"". Goodyer ; which are 

 these.' — T. Johnson. 



Ulnms cavipestris Sm. 

 Vlmus vulgatissima folio lato scabro. The common Khne. 



This Elme is a very great high tree, the barke of the young 

 trees, and boughes of the Elder, which are usually lopped or shred, 

 is smooth and ver\' tough, and wil strip or pil from the wood 

 a great length without breaking : the bark of the body of the old 

 trees as the trees grow in bignesse, tearcs or rents, wdiich makes it 

 very rough. The innermost wood of the tree is of reddish yellow 

 or brownish colour, and curled, and after it is drie, very tough, hard 

 to cleave or rent, whereof naves of Carts arc most commonly made : 

 the wood next the barke, which is called the sap, is white. Before 

 the leaves come forth the flowers appeare, about the end of March, 

 which grow on the twigs or branches, closcl}- compacted or thrust 

 together, and are like to the chives growing in the middle of most 

 flowers, of a reddish colour : after which come flat seed, more long 

 than broad, not much unlike the garden Arach seed in forme and 

 bignesse, and doe for the most part fall away before or shortly 

 after the leaves spring forth, and some hang on a great part of the 

 Sommcr : the leaves grow on the twiggcs, of a darke greene colour ; 

 the middle size whereof are two inches broad, and three inches 



