488 ULMUS CAMPESTRIS. 
tain." or " tall elm," (Ulmus atinia,) which corresponds to the Ulmus campestris; 
the " Gaulic elm;" the "elm of Italy," which had its leaves in tufts; and the 
" wild elm." 
In Britain, the elm has been planted from time immemorial, or, at least, 
from the era of the possession of that island by the Romans; probably, having 
been brought over, as was conjectured by Dr. Walker, during the Crusades. The 
oldest trees on record are, perhaps, a beautiful group at Mongewell, in Oxford- 
shire, which were celebrated in the time of Leland, in the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth. The largest of these trees, according to Mr. Loudon, is seventy-nine feet 
high, fourteen feet in circumference at three feet above the ground, with a head 
sixty-five feet in diameter. There are, doubtless, much older trees in England ; 
for the elm, being of much less national importance than the oak, has never pos- 
sessed the same attractions for antiquaries. Evelyn, to prove that the elm attains 
a "prodigious growth in less than a person's age," mentions a tree, which he had 
seen "planted by the hand of a countess, living not long since, which was near 
twelve feet compass, and of a height proportionable." ***** " Mine own 
hands," he adds, " measured a table more than once, of about five feet in breadth, 
nine and a half feet in length, and six inches thick, all entire and clear. This, cut 
out of a tree felled by my father's order, was made a pastry board. * ^ * * * The 
incomparable walks at the royal palaces, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, were 
planted with this majestic tree." These elms are said to have been the first that 
were planted in Spain; and Baron Dillon tells us that, when he saw them, about 
the end of the last century, they were six feet in diameter, and in a healthy state. 
Several of these trees were still in existence, as lately as 1833. The plants were 
taken from Britain, by Philip II., who had married Mary Tudor, daughter of 
Henry VIII., and queen of England. In Scotland, the English elm was hardly 
known before the union of the two kingdoms. Dr. Walker mentions it, in 1780, 
as being nowhere found in that country of a large size ; but, as promising to 
afford a much greater quantity of wood than the Scotch elm, in the same space 
of time. He particularizes a tree planted in 1771, which, in 1799, was thirty-five 
feet high. In Ireland, the English, or narrow-leaved elm, is said, in Mackay's 
" Flora Hibernica," to be abundant, but scarcely indigenous. 
Among the recorded trees of this species, in Britain, perhaps there are none 
more remarkable than the " Crawley Elm," which has been figured by Strutt, in 
his " Sylva Britannica, as well as by Loudon, in his "Arboretum Britannicum," 
and stands on the high road from London to Brighton. According to the last- 
named gentleman, it is seventy feet high, with a trunk, which is hollow, sixty- 
one feet in circumference on the exterior, at the ground, and thirty-five feet round 
the inside, at two feet from the base. There is a regular door to the cavity of 
this tree, the key of which is kept by the lord of the manor ; but it is opened on 
particular occasions, when the neighbours meet to regale themselves in its inte- 
rior, where there is a room, with a floor paved with bricks, sufficiently capacious 
to contain a party of twelve or more persons. Madame de Genlis says, a poor 
woman gave birth to an infant in the hollow of this tree, where she afterwards 
resided for a long time. 
At Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire, there is an Ulmus campestris one hun- 
dred and fifty feet high, with a trunk nine and a half feet in diameter, and an 
ambitus or spread of branches of seventy-four feet. It is estimated to be over two 
hundred years of age. 
The principal public avenues of elms, in England, are in St. James' Park, and 
at Cambridge and Oxford ; and there are also some very fine ones on private 
gentlemen's seats, especially at White Knights, near Reading, at Littlecote Hall, 
and at Strathfieldsaye. 
One of the largest trees of this species in Scotland, is at Wemyss Castle, in 
