AMERICAN ELM. 5QO 
Hudson above the Highlands, where there is a fine tree which annually flow* rs 
in April or May. J 
13. U. a. dimidiata. Dimidiate-leaved American Elm; Ulmus dimidiate 01 
Rafinesque; a shrub with smooth, angular branchlets, native of Georgia and 
Florida, and growing from eight to twelve feet in height. The leaves whirl, 
are borne on short petioles, are of two forms, from one to two inches in length 
allot a pale colour sub-coriaceous texture, equally serrate, with the has, veri 
oblique often one side decurrent, and the other reduced in size or dimidiate; thai 
is, in the narrow leaves the base of one side is removed upwards of the petiole 
and is much reduced in its dimensions. 
14. U. a. opaca. Densely-shaded American Elm; Ulmus opaca. of Nuttall; 
Orme opaque, of the French ; Undurchsichtige Ulme, of the Germans. This 
curious elm was discovered in 1818, by 
Mr. Nuttall, near the confluence of Kiam- 
esha and Red Rivers, in the territory of 
Arkansas. He describes it as forming a \ ^\l 
majestic, spreading tree, with smooth and 
brownish branchlets, of the dimensions 
of the ordinary oak, and remarkable for 
the smallness and thickness of its oblique 
and unusually blunt leaves, which, with 
their short stalks, are only about an incli 
in length, and half as broad as they are 
long; they are very numerous, close 
together, scabrous, with minute papilla?, 
are of a somewhat shining and deep- 
green above, and paler beneath; they are oblong-ovate; mostly obtuse, doubly 
denticulated, oblique at the base, as well as the whole outline, with one half 
much narrower than the other; and the nerves on the under side, are pubescent, 
strong, pennate, simple or forked. The flowers are fasciculated in small num- 
bers, and occur on short peduncles. The samara? are of an elliptic form, rat In r 
deeply bifid at the summit, and covered with a dense, somewhat ferruginous 
pubescence, even when ripe. The density of shade produced by this tire, adds 
Mr. Nuttall, "so crowded with rigid leaves, and the peculiarity of its appearance, 
entitle it to a place in the nurseries of the curious, and it is probably quite hardy 
enough for all temperate climates. To this species Virgil's epithet, 
'Fcecundse frondibus ulmi.' 
might more justly be applied than to any other."* 
Geography and History. The Ulmus americana is indigenous to North Amer- 
ica from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. It appears to be tin' most multiplied, and 
attains the greatest dimensions, within the territory situated between the forty- 
first and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude, which comprises the principal puts 
of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, 
and of the states of New England and New York. In the middle stairs, and 
farther southward, it becomes less multiplied; but west of the Alleghanies, it is 
particularly abundant in ah the fertile bottoms watered by the streams that sw.ll 
the Mississippi and the Ohio, which are inundated by the floods of spring. 
This species was introduced into Germany in the early part of the \ VII Ith cen- 
tury, and one of the first-planted trees is still growing at Schwobbache, near I'yr- 
mont, in Westphalia. It does not appear to have been propagated in Britain, 
however, before the year 1752, when it was planted at Mile laid. London, hy 
* North American Sylva, p. ?6. 
