THE ELM. 48 



"Elm-towns," another circumstance indicating its probably exotic 

 origin, since names of places founded upon that of the elm are very 

 rare, while names of towns and villages founded on that of the oak and 

 other undoubted natives are quite frequent. There is one kind of elm 

 which is acknowledged to be indigenous that one called by botanists 

 Ulmus montana, and popularly distinguished as the wych-elm. In all 

 characters except the technical ones found in the shape of the leaf, and 

 in the structure of the flowers and fruit, this is a perfectly dissimilar 

 tree. Instead of being lofty, erect, and with many tiers of columns 

 that alternately lose and disclose themselves among the foliage, this one 

 is comparatively low in stature, and the tree is disposed more to the 

 spreading or horizontal mode of growth : consequently it never attains 

 the handsome figure of the campestris ; it is unsuited for avenues and 

 colonnades, and takes its place better among the middle-class forest- 

 inhabitants. Planted singly, well-grown individuals have, nevertheless, 

 a beauty which is not to be ignored. The leaves are many times larger 

 than those of its loftier relative, and are disposed in so elegant a 

 manner along the twigs as to give the branches the appearance of 

 enormous "pinnate leaves," or such as are formed after the manner of 

 those of the Robinia. The long and curving lines produced by these, 

 and the amplitude of surface, constitute attributes such as few other 

 trees present, and redeem the wych-elm from any charge of absolute 

 inferiority. The name, which is a singular one, and is often misspelled 

 "witch," from some confusion of ideas as to the wych-elm and the 

 mountain-ash, a tree from time immemorial associated with witch- 

 craft, signifies a box or chest, and refers to the ancient use of the 

 wood for the purposes of the rough cabinet-maker. Chaucer spells it 

 "wiche," and by Sir John Mandeville the name is applied to the Ark 

 of the Covenant, which, as he says " Titus ledde with him to Rome." 

 It was also used in the sense of coffin: and coffins, to this day, it may 

 be well to add, are largely made of the wood of the elm. The wych 

 elm is the species that predominates in the north of England, as in the 

 south the prevailing species is the campestris. The two forms abound 

 equally in flowers, but the wych-elm is much more ready to ripen its 

 fruit, and the description above given of the latter product pertains 

 perhaps more emphatically to it. Herein again we have a curious bit 

 of collateral evidence as to the campestris not being aboriginal to Eng- 

 land. For it is inconsistent with the beautiful harmony of nature that 

 a tree or plant should be located in a spot where the climate would be 

 opposed to its free multiplication by seed cast from its own boughs. 



