1 88 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



U. mo?ifana. The branchlets are stouter than in U. glabra, and 

 often do not become striated as in that species. The leaves 

 resemble those of O. glabra in being smooth on the upper 

 surface, and in having long stalks, but they are as thick as those 

 of U. montana. The samaras are intermediate, and abundance 

 of fertile seed is produced. The tree suckers freely, and it has 

 a peculiar habit, the branches being very ascending, and like 

 most first crosses it is extraordinarily vigorous. The author 

 states that in the Victoria Park at Bath, where nearly forty 

 kinds of elms were planted about 1820, the Huntingdon elm is 

 twice as large as any of the other kinds, and he quotes from 

 Loudon the case of the tree in the Chiswick Garden which was 

 35 feet high ten years after it was planted. In the Huntingdon 

 elm most of the characters of U. glabra are dominant, but the 

 author points out that the comparatively large size of the leaf is 

 due to vigour merely. 



Sowings of a number of other elms — including the Jersey elm 

 ( U. campestris var. sarmensis), the Cornish elm ( U. glabra var. 

 coriiubie7isis) and others — were made, but all gave mixed seed- 

 lings. In the case of the common, or, as it is more frequently 

 called in the north, the English elm ( U. ca?npestrts, Linn.), from 

 nineteen boxes of seed sown not a single seedling was produced, 

 and, excluding doubtfuls, only two plants resulted from the total 

 sowings. From an examination of some of the " varieties " of 

 elm, the author found that in several of these the flowers tend to 

 become malformed, and he thinks that possibly this may be 

 what has occurred in the English elm ; at any rate, had it not 

 been a free suckerer it would have disappeared long ago. This 

 elm, the author inclines to think, is "one of the descendants of 

 the first cross between the two species, possibly due to a second 

 hybridisation of some of these descendants with U. mofifana." 



These investigations served to guide the author " to a correct 

 appreciation of the poplars, which have so long been a puzzle to 

 systematists." According to the author we have in cultivation 

 in this country three " black " poplars — Fopulus nigra (the 

 European black poplar), F. serotina (the black Italian poplar, a 

 hybrid, and always a male tree), and a number of female trees 

 which, like the black Italian poplar, are generally supposed to 

 be forms of the American species P. deltoidea} The last-named 



^ In the Kew Hand List of Trees and Shrubs the black Italian poplar is 

 considered to be identical with this species. — A. D. R. 



