ELM. 290 



ULMACEAE. ELM FAMILY. 



Genus UlyMUS. 



Leaves simple, alternate, two-ranked, short petioled, straight 

 veined, usually rather rough. Flowers appear before the leaves 

 in our species; perfect or rarely polygamous, apetalous, green- 

 ish, in lateral clusters; calyx four to nine lobed; stamens four 

 to nine with long slender filaments; ovary superior, one-celled 

 or rarely two-celled, flattened; styles two, short and diverging. 

 Fruit a samara with a broad membranous margin, one-celled, 

 one-seeded, ripens in early summer; seed all embryo. A genus 

 of about fifteen widely distributed species, which are mostly 

 large deciduous trees, three of which occur in our range. Most 

 of the elms produce hard, tough wood, that is often difficult to 

 split. The European species have given rise to many varieties 

 differing from the parent species in many ways, but chiefly in 

 habit of growth and color of foliage. A form of the European 

 Scotch Elm (U. Montana) with pendulous habit, known in nur- 

 series as Camperdown Weeping Elm, has done very well in a 

 somewhat protected location at the Minnesota Experiment Sta- 

 tion, -and bids fair to make a very ornamental specimen. The 

 stock on which it is worked (probably U. campestris), however, 

 has sunscalded. In China a white mucilaginous meal is made 

 from the inner bark of the Elm, and is used as food by the 

 mountaineers of the northern provinces and in the composition 

 of incense sticks. The fruit is employed in medicine, and the 

 bark and young fruits are eaten in periods of severe famine. 



Propagation. The species are grown from seeds and the 

 varieties by layers, budding, and grafting. With the exception 

 of the Slippery Elm (q. v.) the seeds should be sown as soon 

 as gathered. 



Ulmus americana. White Ilm. American Elm. Water 

 Elm. 



Leaves three to four inches long, obovate-oblong to oval, 

 usually smooth on the upper and soft and velvety on the lower 

 surface, coarsely and doubly serrate, taper-pointed, turning to 

 a bright yellow before falling. Branches small, slender, ascend- 

 ing, at length spreading and pendulous; twigs and buds smooth, 



