320 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
Fig. 102. 
that our weeping elm does not develop 
its greatest beauty except in alluvial 
soils, and that it suffers everywhere near 
the seacoast from the persistent attacks 
of leaf-worms and borers. 
The English elm differs materially 
from our weeping elm in leaves, trunk, 
and manner of branching. The leaves 
are smaller, more regularly and sharply 
cut, and darker; and the bark is also 
much darker colored. In the ramification of 
the branches it is peculiar. The first diver¬ 
gence usually occurs at ten to twelve feet above 
the ground; and these branches, instead of 
ascending and forming a sharp angle with the trunk, like those 
of our weeping elm, strike out unevenly, nearly at right angles with 
the trunk, and with age maintain their superior importance to the 
branches that diverge above them, notwithstanding the tree usually 
maintains a central trunk to a considerable height. This projection 
of massive low-growing branches, as shown in the accompanying 
sketch, Fig. 102, gives the English elm a much grander expression 
when seen from below than our white elm, the branches of which 
are apt to diverge with such even-sized multiplicity that none of 
them are of great size; and one is not fully impressed with their 
grandeur until standing at such a distance from the tree that the 
great verdant arc which the branches describe can be seen as a 
whole. This is not always the case, as many old white elms ramify 
into a few great branches; but if one will find contiguous avenues 
of the English and the American elm, the different effect upon the 
eye of the forms above alluded to, will be found very striking. 
Another peculiarity that increases this difference of expression is 
the tufty habit of the English elm, which forms little masses of 
leaves at the knots and intersections of old branches, adding by 
the contrast of their young twigs and verdure a greater apparent 
massiveness to the branches they grow upon. Though this elm 
is marked by a greater weight of lower branches than our native 
favorite, it does not usually spread so broadly. After insuring the 
