THE WYCH ELM 83 



The typical form of the Wych Elm has a smooth 

 thin bark, and does not throw out heavy horizontal 

 limbs like the Common Elm. It flowers, too, rather 

 earlier than the latter, and its samaras form conspicu- 

 ous pale green hop-like clusters on the otherwise bare 

 boughs in April, before the appearance of its leaves. 

 The stem is often of no great height, though attaining 

 a large girth ; and from the main ascending limbs 

 numerous twiggy branches wave pendulously with a 

 pleasing effect when partly clothed with the unripe 

 fruits or with the young leaf-buds in their tender 

 greenery, whether the tree overhangs some steep- 

 banked lane or stands isolated in a park. Gilpin says 

 of it that it " is, perhaps, generally more picturesque 

 than the common sort, as it hangs more negligently, 

 though, at the same time, with this negligence it loses 

 in a good degree that happy surface for catching 

 masses of light which we admire in the Common 

 Elm. We observe, also, when we see this tree in 

 company with the Common Elm, that its bark is 

 somewhat of a lighter hue." 



Commenting on this passage, Sir Thomas Dick 

 Lauder remarks : 



" We are disposed to think that Mr. Gilpin hardly does justice 

 to this Elm. For our parts, we consider the Wych or Scottish Elm 

 as one of the most beautiful trees in our British sylva. The trunk is 

 so bold and picturesque in form, covered, as it frequently is, with 

 huge excrescences ; the limbs and branches are so free and graceful 

 in their growth, and the foliage is so rich, without being leafy or 

 clumpy as a whole ; and the head is generally so finely massed, and 

 yet so well broken, as to render it one of the noblest of park 

 trees ; and when it grows wildly amid the rocky scenery of its 

 native Scotland there is no tree which assumes so great or so 

 pleasing a variety of character." 



