ULEX ULMUS 611 



gardens, for its long, slender stems set with flowers are often very pretty 

 when few other shrubs are in blossom. But it needs a poor dry soil to 

 develop its greatest beauty. In rich garden soil it gets to be 6 ft. high, 

 and very lanky. 



ULMUS. ELM. URTICACE^. 



A group of about twenty species of deciduous trees, some of them of 

 the largest size, with alternate, toothed leaves, usually unequal-sided at 

 the base. Flowers produced in clusters or short racemes from axillary 

 buds, either on the naked shoots in early .spring, or on the leafy ones in 

 autumn. They have no beauty, being very small, green, or tinged with 

 red: the perianth or calyx is somewhat bell-shaped, with four to nine 

 (usually about five) lobes, and the same number of stamens. The fruit 

 is most characteristic, being a flat, membranous, semi-transparent disc 

 ("samara"), enclosing the seed in a cavity at the centre or towards the 

 apex, where it is slightly or deeply notched. The leaves of elms usually 

 die off yellow in autumn. There are three elms in cultivation which 

 flower on the leafy shoots of the year in autumn; they are crassifolia, 

 parvifolia, and serotina. The remainder are spring-flowering, and ripen 

 their seeds by midsummer. If new stocks are required, the seeds should 

 be sown as soon as ripe. The varieties are chiefly grafted on seedlings of 

 U. montana, this being preferred because its roots do not produce suckers 

 like campestris or nitens. 



All the elms are gross feeders, and the roots travel enormous distances 

 in search of food. Whilst not very particular, they thrive best on deep 

 alluvial soil. The worst enemy of the elms, the English elm in particular, 

 is a boring beetle (Scolytus destructor]. The female of this insect burrows 

 a channel beneath the bark, along which she distributes her eggs ; when 

 these hatch out they burrow at right angles to the parent channel, the 

 whole brood producing a curious and very characteristic fishbone-like 

 marking. The attacks of this beetle, itself about J in. long, usually cause 

 the death of the tree. It is, I think, most destructive in dry, hot summers, 

 and trees that have been injured at the roots appear more liable to its 

 attacks than healthy ones. There is probably no cure, but the trees may 

 be assisted by feeding and watering. In the case of important trees, 

 outward applications in spring of coal tar or train oil, after the rough outer 

 bark has been shaved off, have been recommended. Trees badly affected 

 should be cut down and not left lying about for the young larvae to hatch 

 out, which they do about the end of May. 



f 

 U ALATA, Michaux. WAHOO or WINGED ELM. 



It is doubtful if this elm be at present in cultivation, although according 

 to Loudon it was introduced in 1820. For a long time the corky-barked 

 form of U. nitens (suberosa) did duty for it, the two resembling each other 

 in the corky wings of the branches. They are amply distinct in other 

 respects, for U. alata has leaves downy all over the midrib and veins beneath, 

 and the fruits are downy and distinctly hairy. It is a tree found wild in 



