PENTANDRIA. DIGYNIA. Ulmus 
353 
U. campes'tris. (Leaves doubly serrated, unequal at the base: flowers 
nearly sessile, four-cleft, with four stamens, crowded together : 
fruit oblong. E.) 
(E. Bot. 1886. JEi.)—Woodv. 197— FI. Dan. 632— Hunt. Evel. i. p. 114. Ed. 
' 2—Park, 1404. 1. %—Malik. 144— Lob. Obs . 607. 1— Ger. Em. 1480. 1 
—Park. 1404. 1 —Ger. 1297. 1 —Trag. 1087. 
(A large tree with rugged bark, heaves rhomboid-ovate, alternate, shortly 
petiolate ; about two inches long, and one broad in the middle, rough 
on the upper surface, paler and smoother underneath. Flowers almost 
sessile, appearing much earlier than the foliage, from inferior buds, in 
numerous small, dense, dull purple clusters; each flower having a small 
ciliated bractea at its base. Anthers purple. A weeping var. (as of the 
ash,) is cultivated in the nurseries. E.) 
Southern Elm. (Irish .* Ailim. Welsh: Llwyf gyffredin. Gaelic: 
An-leamhan. E.) Hedges. Plentiful in Worcestershire and Middlesex. 
Chiefly in hedge rows. (In the south of England far more prevalent 
than the oak. E.) T. March—April.* 
* A decoction of the inner hark drank freely has been known to relieve dropsies.—It 
cures the Lepra icthyosis of Sauvages. Lettsom’s Med. Mem. § 3. (The leaves may be 
given in powder, and have a bitterish astringent taste. E.) The bark dried and ground 
to powder has been mixed with wheat in Norway to make bread in times of scarcity. The 
flowers have a violet smell, (and are said to occasion a very sickly state in bees which fre¬ 
quent them, as described in Virgil.) The wood, being hard and tough, is used to make 
axle-trees, mill-wheels, keels of boats, chairs, coffins, (rails, gates, under-ground pipes, mill- 
work, and is essential to patten-makers. E) The tree is beautiful, and well adapted to 
make shady walks as it does not destroy the grass, and its leaves are acceptable to cows, 
horses, goats, sheep, and swine ; for this purpose it should be grafted upon U- glabra, and 
then the roots will not send out suckers, which the common Elm is very apt to do, and 
give a great deal of trouble to keep the ground clear of them. (In marshy ground, or clayey 
soil retentive of moisture, Elm-trees frequently become hollow, or porous, and consequent¬ 
ly of little value as timber ; but the trees of slow growth, in a stiff, strong soil, are heavy 
and dense, and proportionably esteemed. E.) It bears to be transplanted. (Xyloma XJlmi, 
clustered, brown, changing to black, grows in irregular patches, with conspicuous filmy 
scales, on both sides the leaf. Pers. The leaf of the Elm in autumn may commonly be 
observed marked with dark-coloured blotches, which are the “ plague-spots ” of its destruc¬ 
tion. When spring arrives, these spots become matured, the surface cracks, and the capsules 
discharge their seeds. Lamarck names this intruder Sphceria Xylomoid.es; whether distinct 
from other parasites here noticed, we are not confident. Vide Journ. Nat. PI. v, f. 1. And 
here we take leave to insert a brief explication of an appearance, (though not peculiar to 
the kind of tree above described, which has frequently perplexed even well-informed natu¬ 
ralists, but which has been by a judicious application of phylological facts satisfactorily 
solved by Dr. Mason Good. “ Foreign substances,” remarks that author “ have often 
been found deeply imbedded in trees ; having at one time been sunk into the inner bark, or 
penetrated it by a wound or excavation, and afterwards become covered over with new 
annual growths of liber and alburnum. Hence the cause of the very wonderful pheno¬ 
mena of toads or frogs being found in a like situation ; having in the same way been im¬ 
pacted in the hole or crack into which they had crept, by the glutinous fluid of the inner 
bark, during sickness or a protracted winter sleep. Some of these have been found alive 
when the trees have been cut down, having derived both air and nutriment enough from the 
surrounding vessels of the tree during their imprisonment.” Also Dothidea (Spheeria) 
Ulmi. Grev. Scot. Crypt. 200. “ Epiphyllous, roundish, confluent, convex, greyish-black, 
black within, the cellules white, orifices granuliform,” may be detected on the dead leaves of 
Elm. The viscous juice often included in blisters on Elm leaves, the work of insects, was 
once a favourite cosmetic, and called Elm-water. It is still used for recent bruises. Various 
insects are intimately connected with the Elm ; as Anthribus scabrosus, Scolytus destructor 
VOL. II. 2 A 
