FLORA AND SYLVA 
place to a massive trunk often of vast 
girth, breaking into great limbs w^hich 
are larger and wider spreading and carry 
a more massive crown of deep green, 
which usually falls in the autumn a little 
sooner. The branches are more or less 
drooping, falling into free and graceful 
forms rather than the trim roundness 
of many trees. Though the finest trees 
grow from 80 to 100 feet or more high, 
this Elm is in the main not so tall as 
the Field Elm and is less enduring. Its 
leaf is a deeper green and in the larger 
forms about four times larger, with a 
longer point and more deeply serrated, 
while the surface is roughly hairy. Even 
the bark is different, that of the Wych 
Elm remaining smooth till of a good age 
and then breaking into flat scales which 
are never so rough or so thick as in the 
Field Elm. Huge warty knots are often 
seen upon the trunk of the Wych Elm, 
particularly after the loss of a limb or 
any check to growth, and these swel- 
lings not only add to the effect of old 
trees but are valued by cabinet-makers 
for their rich marbling. At the same time 
these faults favour the presence of wood- 
boring insects and a sort of dry-rot to 
which the trunk of the Wych Elm is 
somewhat liable. 
Though its Latin name would imply 
a fondness for high ground, none of the 
Elms are true mountain trees and the 
Wych Elm is never happier than when in 
the deep moist glens and river-dales of 
the north, where its roots flourish on 
alluvial soil such as is constantly moist 
without being overcharged with water. 
The rocky gorges through which our 
northern rivers find their way to the 
As a Forest Tree. 
sea, offer just these conditions in many 
parts of their course, and here the Wych 
I Elm is seen in beauty second to none 
among our native trees. In Yorkshire 
it reaches its highest point in Britain — 
1,300 feet, and this moderate record is 
I distanced by the Field Elm which rises 
I to 1,500 feet amid the hills of Derby- 
shire. In the mountain forests of Swit- 
zerland and Germany it attains an ele- 
vation of 3,000 feet or a little more, 
but it is nowhere a high mountain tree, 
choosing rather the lower slopes and 
the steep moist banks through which 
the moisture from above finds its way 
to the rivers. 
While of fine effect in 
groups, the Wych Elm 
is not a tree for mixed woods, where its 
spreading way of growth makes it such 
a bad neighbour that in many wood- 
lands it is now cut out without mercy. 
The tough drooping branches are apt 
to whip the shoots of slower-growing 
and more valuable trees, and the fall- 
ing to one side which is such an ele- 
ment of beauty in old Wych Elms, 
is out of place in a mixed plantation. 
The growth of young trees is very rapid, 
the long annual shoots being so flexible 
as to resist the fiercest storms and make 
it one of the best trees for wind-swept 
shores and exposed places. It is much 
saf^r than the Field Elm, thriving well 
as a hedgerow tree and much less apt 
to sucker, though, if the roots are in- 
jured, suckers sometimes spring up. 
On poor land it is short-lived and not 
worth growing and it fails completely 
on dry gravel or stiff clays, though it 
grows fairly well upon chalk and lime- 
