ULM 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



ULM 



773 



has been much grown for fodder in Scotland. The colliers 

 in the forest of Dean chop it small, and give it to their horses 

 in winter with great advantage. Team-horses may be sup- 

 ported by it if it be cut young, and bruised in a mill to break 

 the thorns. Goats, cattle, horses, and sheep, will feed upon 

 the tender tops. In some respects it is a very hardy plant, 

 and will make fences upon the bleakest mountains, and close 

 to the sea-side, where the spray of the sea destroys almost 

 every other shrub ; but it does not bear cold well, and is 

 often cut down to the roots, and even destroyed, in severe 

 winters. There are several varieties ; as, the Common 

 Yellow Furze; the White-flowered Furze; the Short-spined 

 Furze ; the Large French Furze ; the Small Dwarf Furze ; 

 and the Round-podded Furze. It propagates itself plenti- 

 fully by seeds, which are cast out of the pods to a consider- 

 able distance when ripe. 



2. Ulex Nanus ; Dwarf Furze. Calix-teeth lanceolate, 

 distant; bractes minute, pressed close; branchlets decum- 

 bent. This is generally considered as a variety of the pre- 

 ceding species. It is smaller, with shorter spines, of a paler 

 green ; in the former the thorns are longer than the corolla, 

 in this the corolla is as long as the calix, and the thorns are 

 shorter than the corolla. If these characters were proved to 

 be permanent, this would be determined as a distinct species. 

 It propagates itself by its seeds. 



3. Ulex Capensis. Leaves solitary, obtuse ; spines simple, 

 terminating; stem woody and hard, covered with a greenish 

 bark when young, but afterwards becoming grayish ; branches 

 slender and woody. Native of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 where it usually grows to the height of five or six feet. It is 

 preserved in our green-houses or dry-stoves along with other 

 hardy exotics : it is difficult to increase by layers or 

 cuttings. 



Ulmus ; a genus of the class Pentandria, order Digynia. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix: perianth one-leafed, turbi- 

 nate, wrinkled ; border five-cleft, erect, coloured within, per- 

 manent. Corolla: none. Stamina: filamenta five, some- 

 times four, even as many as eight, awl-shaped, twice as long 

 as the calix; antherae four-grooved, erect, short. Pistil: 

 germen orbicular, erect; styles two, shorter than the stamina, 

 reflexed ; stigmas pubescent. Pericarp : capsule oval, large, 

 juiceless, compressed, membranaceous, winged, one-celled. 

 Seed: one, roundish, slightly compressed. ESSENTIAL 

 CHARACTER. Calix: four or five cleft, inferior, permanent. 

 Corolla : none. Capsule: membranaceous, compressed, flat, 

 one-seeded. The species are, 



1. Ulmus Campestris; Common Elm. Leaves doubly 

 serrate, rugged, unequal at the base ; flowers subsessile, 

 heaped; bark cloven, on the branches corky; flowers from 

 their proper gems, clustered, scarcely peduncled, numerous, 

 brownish flesh-coloured ; capsules oblong. This tree grows 

 to a great size, and will arrive to a load of timber in forty 

 years. The flowers have a violet smell. The bark of the 

 young trees, and the boughs of the old, are smooth and 

 very tough, and will strip or peel from the wood a great 

 length without breaking: the bark of the body of the old 

 trees, as they grow in bigness, tears or rends, which makes 

 it very rough. The innermost wood is of a reddish yellow 

 or brownish colour, and curled, and after it is dry very 

 tough and hard to cleave. The wood next the bark or sap 

 is white. Before the leaves come forth the flowers appear, 

 about the end of March, growing on the twigs or branches, 

 closely compacted or thrust together, of a red colour; after 

 which come flat seeds, more long than broad, not much un- 

 like the Garden Arach seed in form and size. They gene- 

 rally fall away before or shortly after the leaves appear, but 



some hang on a great part of the summer. There are seve- 

 ral varieties of the Elm ; as, the Small-leaved English ; the 

 larger Rough-leaved English ; the Small-leaved Cornish ; 

 the Smooth-barked Wych Elm; the Broad-leaved ditto; the 

 Scotch; the Rough-leaved Dutch, with large leaves; the 

 Yellow or Golden-striped ; the Silver-striped ; the Silver- 

 dusted, &c. The Elm appears to be a native of England, 

 for there are no less than forty places, named after it, most 

 of which are mentioned in Doomsday Book. Many trees of 

 enormous size have been noticed in various parts of the kino-- 

 dom, some nearly three yards in circumference near the root, 

 and nearly two centuries old. This tree grows upright; and, 

 says Mr. Gilpin, when it meets with a soil it loves, rises 

 higher than the generality of trees ; and after it has assumed 

 the dignity and hoary roughness of age, few of its forest 

 brethren, though correctly speaking it is not a forester, excel 

 it in grandeur and beauty. Its character in its skeleton par- 

 takes much of the Oak, so much that when it becomes rough 

 and old, at a little distance may be mistaken for the Oak. In 

 full foliage, its character is better marked ; and no tree is more 

 adapted to receive grand masses of light ; nor is its foliage, 

 shadowing as it is, of the heavy kind. Its leaves are small, 

 and give it a natural lightness : it commonly hangs loosely, 

 and is in general very picturesque. The timber is of singular 

 use, especially where it may lie continually dry, or wet, in 

 extremes : hence it is well adapted for water-works, mills, 

 pipes, pumps, aqueducts, pales, ship-planks beneath the 

 water line; also for wheelwrights, and for handles for the 

 single hand-saw. Rails and gates of this timber, when thin- 

 sawn, are not so apt to rive as Oak. The knotty parts are 

 fit for naves and tubs, the straight and smooth for axle- 

 trees, and the very roots for curiously dappled works. It 

 has scarcely any superior for kerbs of coppers, feather-edge 

 and weather-boards ; but it does not easily admit the nail 

 without boring. Chopping-blocks, blocks for the hat-maker, 

 trunks, and boxes to be covered with leather ; coffins, dressers, 

 and tables of great length, and of a lustrous colour, if rightly 

 seasoned. It is also fit for the carver, on account of the 

 nature of the grain, and its toughness, which fits it for all 

 those curious works of statues and architecture, not being 

 subject to warping. Vitruvius recommends it both for ten- 

 ons and mortises ; and it makes the second-best sort of 

 charcoal. Wherever bricks are scarce and dear, great 

 quantities of this tree are cut up for studs and weather- 

 boarding, for the sides of barns, stables, and even dwelling- 

 houses, and in the southern counties it is often substituted 

 for oak. The bark, dried and ground to powder, has 

 been mixed with meal by the Norwegians, to make bread 

 in times of scarcity. The leaves, suffered to dry upon the 

 branches, and laid up in a dry barn, prove a great relief to 

 cattle in winter, where fodder is scarce : they are acceptable 

 to horses, cows, sheep, goats, and swine, for which they 

 are gathered in some parts of- Herefordshire. It is said that 

 silkworms will devour the leaves, when tender, with great 

 avidity. The inner tough bark has no remarkable smell, but 

 a bitterish taste, and abounds with a slimy juice, which has 

 been recommended in nephritic cases, and externally as a 

 useful application to burns : the bark of the branches is more 

 bitter than that of the trunk, and therefore probably more 

 efficacious. The complaints for which it is chiefly recom- 

 mended are of the cutaneous kind, allied to herpes and 

 lepra : a decoction drank freely has been known to carry 

 off the water in dropsies. Dr. Lettsom found it most effec- 

 tual in what he supposed to be the lepra ichthyosis of Sau- 

 vages, in which it succeeded, after all the medicines usually 

 employed in such cases had failed. A remarkable instance 



