ULMACE^E 



311 



2. Ulmus racemosa Thomas. Rock Elm. Cork Elm. 



Ulmus Thomasii Sarg. 



Leaves obovate to oblong-oval, rather abruptly narrowed at apex into a short broad 

 point, equally or somewhat unequally rounded, cuneate or subcordate at base, and coarsely 

 doubly serrate, when they unfold pilose on the upper surface and covered on the lower 

 with soft white hairs, at maturity 2'-2|' long, f'-l' wide, thick and firm, smooth, dark green 

 and lustrous above, paler and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout midrib and the 

 numerous straight veins running to the point of the teeth and connected by obscure cross 

 veinlets; turning in the autumn bright clear yellow; petioles pubescent, about \' in length; 

 stipules ovate-lanceolate, conspicuously veined, light green, marked with dark red on the 

 margins above the middle, f ' long, clasping the stem by their abruptly enlarged cordate 

 base conspicuously dentate with 1-3 prominent teeth on each side, falling when the leaves 

 are half grown. Flowers on elongated slender drooping pedicels often \' long, in 2-4, usu- 



Fig. 283 



ally in 3 flowered, puberulous cymes becoming more or less racemose by the lengthening 

 of the axis of the inflorescence, and when fully grown sometimes 2' in length; calyx green, 

 divided nearly to the middle into 7 or 8 rounded dark red scarious lobes; anthers dark 

 purple; ovary coated with long pale hairs most abundant on the margins; styles light green. 

 Fruit ripening when the leaves are about half grown, ovoid or obovoid-oblong, \' long, 

 with a shallow open notch at the apex, obscurely veined, pale pubescent, ciliate on the 

 slightly thickened border of the broad wing, the margin of the seminal cavity scarcely 

 thickened. 



A tree, 80-100 high, with a trunk occasionally 3 in diameter, and often free of branches 

 for 60, short stout spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender 

 rigid branchlets, light brown when they first appear, and coated with soft pale pubes- 

 cence often persistent until their second season, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous 

 or glabrous and lustrous in their first winter, and marked by scattered oblong lenticels and 

 large orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying an irregular row of 4-6 fibre- vascular 

 bundle-scars, ultimately dark brown or ashy gray, and usually furnished with 3 or 4 thick 

 corky irregular wings often \' broad, and beginning to appear in their first or more often 

 during their second year. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, \' long, with broadly ovate rounded 

 chestnut-brown scales pilose on the outer surface, ciliate on the margins, the inner scales 

 becoming ovate-oblong to lanceolate, and \' long, often dentate at the base, with 1 or 2 

 minute teeth on each side, bright green below the middle, marked with a red blotch above, 

 and white and scarious at the apex. Bark \'-\' thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply 



