10 
BULLETIN 205, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLANT. 
The water elm thrives in swanips and on the margins of sluggish 
streams. Normally it grows in water which is permanently 2 to 3 
feet deep, but it survives prolonged inundation of much greater depth. 
The tree seldom exceeds 40 feet in height and 20 inches in diameter, 
and usually is much smaller. 
The bark is much like that of the hop hornbeam or ironwood, and 
the leaves (fig. 7), while obviously similar to those of our other elms, 
are smaller and have blunter marginal serrations. 
Fig. 8.— Seedlings of water elm. 
The water elm flowers very early, from February to April, and the 
fruit usually ripens and falls in a month or six weeks, but occasionally 
is found on the trees as late as August. The extreme length of a 
single specimen of the fruit is about a third of an inch. It consists of 
a plump seed with a shiny blue-black coating, inclosed in a burrlike 
hull (fig. 7) which is ridged and provided with numerous fleshy pro- 
jections. The fruits, which are very numerous, drop into the water 
immediately upon or even before ripening. Seedlings (fig. 8) come 
up by the thousand in midsummer and young plants in all stages of 
growth are abundant, proving that, for increase, seed is the main 
dependence of the tree. 
The water elm is also known (in books) as planer tree, and among 
the French-speaking people of Louisiana as chataignier and charmille. 
