In My Vicarage Garden 



the north than in the south. The great difference 

 in large trees between the two periods in the 

 south of England would be the beech, the Scotch 

 fir, the walnut, the Spanish chestnut, the horse 

 chestnut, the sycamore, and the elm, and all of 

 these, except the horse chestnut, may have been 

 introduced by the Romans. In the south of 

 England the Italian elm, now our common elm, 

 has been the chief agent in disestablishing the 

 ash ; and its name, in Old English, " ulm," or 

 " ulme," seems to be an additional proof of its 

 introduction by the Romans, though etymologists 

 now consider that " elm " is rather cognate to 

 ulmus than derived from it. But whenever intro- 

 duced it does not seem at once to have spread so 

 rapidly as it now does, for in Evelyn's time it was 

 still a scarce tree beyond Stamford. When or by 

 whom the sycamore was introduced into England 

 is not known, but it was fully established in the 

 sixteenth century. It grows wild in Italy, but 

 not far south in any abundance. The horse 

 chestnut is so late an introduction that it is not 

 admitted into the English Flora, even as a 

 naturalised plant ; yet it is a European plant, 

 being found in the Pindus range of mountains in 

 Turkey, and it was introduced into England in 

 the sixteenth century from the Levant. Like the 

 sycamore, it found a congenial soil and climate in 

 England, and soon so firmly established itself that 

 Evelyn, writing in 1662, said of it : " It grows 

 so goodly a tree in competent time, that by this 



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