96 FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 



In Great Britain it does not grow in S. Hants, E. Kent, Hunts, 

 Glamorgan, Pembroke, Flint, N. Lines, Isle of Man, Kirkcudbright, 

 Roxburgh, Orkneys and Shetlands, but elsewhere as far north as 

 Sutherland, and is indigenous and naturalized in many places. It is 

 native in Ireland and the Channel Islands. It is found in Yorks at 

 1300 ft. 



The Wych Elm grows commonly in hedgerows and by the sides 

 of highways, where it is doubtless planted, but it is also found in 

 woods where it may well be native. It is frequently utilized in parks 

 and other places to form avenues or rows of timber trees. 



The general habit of the Wych Elm is drooping, with a twisted 

 bole or base of the trunk. It is a large tree. The bole may be 50 ft. 

 in girth. The bark is corky or not, with thick ribs and deep furrows, 

 horizontal or somewhat spiral. The branches are spreading. The 

 twigs are downy. Suckers are sent up by the roots, especially when 

 cut. The leaves are large, rough above, downy below, egg-shaped to 

 oblong, bluntly pointed, with double or treble teeth, the base unequal 

 or heart-shaped. The stipules soon fall. 



The flowers are apetalous, 5-7 in a cyme, with a bell-shaped 

 perianth fringed with hairs, with blunt lobes, 4-5-cleft, and persistent. 

 There are 4-6 or 5 stamens, with purple anthers inserted on the 

 perianth tube, opposite the lobes. There are 2 styles. The fruit, a 

 samara oblong or rounded, has the seed in the centre, and is notched 

 above. 



The Wych Elm is 80-120 ft. in height, and flowers before the 

 leaves expand. It is a deciduous tree, propagating itself from seed, 

 and from suckers sent up by the roots. 



The flowers are bisexual, the male and female organs being on 

 the same flower as a rule, with 5 anther-stalks, and purple anthers 

 opening outwards, the styles (2) awl-shaped, stigmatic on the inner 

 face. At the base are leaves in the lowest 10-12 axils, flowers above, in 

 dichasial cymes, bearing 2 branches successively reduced to one flower. 

 As with other trees, the flowers of the Wych Elm, which appear 

 before the leaves, are wind -pollinated. The stigmas mature first, 

 before the anthers. The flowers are not in catkins, but in groups. 

 The perianth has 46 lobes, and the stamens are the same number. 

 Before the anthers open the anther-stalks lengthen and stand high 

 above the feathery stigma, so that the pollen can be readily blown 

 away. The stigmas are long-lived. As a rule the pollen is blown 

 upward, some settling eventually on stigmas in flowers higher on 

 the tree. 



