Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta'

Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta', sometimes known as the Huntingdon Elm,[1] is an old English hybrid cultivar raised at Brampton, near Huntingdon, by nurserymen Wood & Ingram in 1746, allegedly from seed collected from an Ulmus × hollandica hybrid at nearby Hinchingbrooke Park.[2][3] The tree was given the epithet 'Vegeta' by Loudon, a name previously accorded the Chichester Elm by Donn, as Loudon considered the two trees identical. The latter is indeed a similar cultivar, but raised much earlier in the 18th century from a tree growing at Chichester Hall, Rawreth in Essex.

Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta'
'Vegeta', Groningen.
Hybrid parentageU. glabra × U. minor
Cultivar'Vegeta'
OriginEngland

Description

In areas unaffected by Dutch elm disease, Huntingdon Elms commonly grow to over 35 m, bearing long, straight branches ascending from a short bole < 4 m in height; the bole of mature trees has distinctive lattice-patterned bark-ridges[4][5] which distinguish the tree from another popular U. × hollandica cultivar 'Major', known as 'Dutch Elm', whose bark breaks into small shallow flakes.[6] The glossy, oval leaves, borne on smooth branchlets that never feature corky wings, have petioles >10 mm long, which distinguish the tree from the Wych Elm, and are very distinctly asymmetric at the base, < 12 cm long by < 7.5 cm broad contracting to an acuminate apex. The tightly-clustered apetalous flowers are bright red, and appear in early spring. The samarae are obovate, < 25 mm long.[7]

A distinguishing feature of 'Vegeta', according to Schneider (1906) and Mitchell (1974), is that the leaf margins to right and left of the petiole start from a vein, not from the midrib.[8][9] 'Vegeta'-type leaves from Hinchingbrooke Park collected by Heybroek in 1960 do not share this feature,[10] nor do some old 'Vegeta' cultivars in Oxford and Edinburgh (see ' 'Vegeta'-like cultivars', below). This unusual feature, however, clearly appears in the older cultivar, Chichester Elm,[11][12] and is frequently present in younger 'Vegeta' elsewhere (see gallery). If indeed the feature distinguishes Chichester from Huntingdon, the former may be more common in cultivation than currently believed, having over time been mis-called "Huntingdon". A 2013 DNA test of old Chichester elms (see under 'Cicestria') did not include a younger nursery-sourced "Huntington" as a "control".[13]

Elwes & Henry[3] and Bean[14] attested that 'Vegeta' suckers freely, but other writers have stated that it does not sucker at all.[5][15] This contradiction is almost certainly owing to methods of propagation: higher class nurseries grafted cuttings onto Wych Elm stock, which would not produce suckers, whilst others simply rooted the cuttings, which would. A comparatively high percentage of the seed is usually viable, but produces variable offspring.[14]

  • 'Vegeta' leaves; note long petioles. Southsea Common
  • 'Vegeta' leaves, Osney churchyard, Botley Road, Oxford
  • Underside
  • 'Vegeta' foliage, North Merchiston Cemetery, Edinburgh
  • 'Vegeta' bark; note lattice pattern
  • Bark of 'Vegeta', Inverleith Park, Edinburgh
  • 'Vegeta' samarae, showing seed close to notch
  • 'Vegeta' fruiting, The Meadows, Edinburgh

Pests and diseases

The tree was one of four European cultivars found by researchers in The Netherlands to be resistant to the initial strain of Dutch elm disease, Ophiostoma ulmi, prevalent in the 1920s and '30s, the others being 'Monumentalis' Rinz, 'Berardii' and 'Exoniensis'. The four were rated less resistant than U. foliacea clone 23, from Spain, later cultivated as 'Christine Buisman'.[16] 'Vegeta' has, however, only a marginal resistance to the later, three times more lethal strain, Ophiostoma novo-ulmi.

Cultivation

The tree was widely planted in England, particularly between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1930s,[6] owing to its very rapid growth (< 3 m per annum) and attractive wide-spreading form, but its habit of forking sometimes led to splitting of the trunk and premature death. On the continent it was marketed in the late 19th century by the Späth nursery of Berlin as U. vegeta Loud., 'Huntingdon elm',[17] and by the Ulrich nursery of Warsaw as U. montana vegeta,[18] whence it was introduced to Eastern Europe, surviving there in several arboreta. Introduced to the USA, it appeared in the catalogues of Hovey's nursery of Boston, Massachusetts, from the 1850s, as Ulmus glabra vegeta, 'Huntingdon Elm',[19] as U. vegeta in the 1902 catalogue of the Bobbink and Atkins nursery, Rutherford, New Jersey,[20] and as U. Huntingdoni in the catalogues of Kelsey's, New York,[21] and of the Plumfield Nursery of Fremont, Nebraska, where it was described as 'one of the finest of this family'.[22] It was planted at the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, in 1893 as U. montana Huntingdoni,[23] Also introduced to Australasia (to Victoria in 1865[24]), the tree was marketed by several Australian nurseries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Owing to its resistance to the original strain of Dutch elm disease, 'Vegeta' was planted in large numbers across Amsterdam after the Second World War as a replacement for 'Belgica' (Belgian Elm), but was itself eventually replaced by the Dutch cultivar 'Dodoens' following the arrival of the more lethal strain of DED in the early 1970s.[25]

Notable trees

The UK TROBI Champion grew at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, measuring 28 m high by 167 cm d.b.h. in 1999 but was felled in 2014;[27] another at Courteenhall in the same county measured 166 cm d.b.h.. In London, many examples still survive, notably around the Millfields Recreation Ground, the largest measuring 31 m high by 88 cm d.b.h.;[28] others can be found at Hackney, two in Gibson Square, Islington, and one in Westminster known as The Marylebone Elm.[29] Several dozen planted in the 1920s survive on Southsea Common in Portsmouth, isolated from disease by the sea and urban sprawl. Lincoln has five examples on Yarborough Crescent[30] and in Hull there are four on Brunswick Avenue.[31] One tree survives at the foot of Ladies Mile, Bristol.[32] Another elm is located in Sheffield, as a street tree on the corner of Chelsea Road, and known locally as the Chelsea Elm.[33]

In Wales, one very large tree (NT number 771, last recorded in 1995) stood in the grounds of Powis Castle, near Welshpool; others have been reported from Abergavenny and Caernarfon. Edinburgh has several of note, in The Meadows and Bruntsfield Links, in Inverleith Park, Fettes College, and Abercromby Place. In Éire, 'Vegeta' is represented by a tree at the Kildangan Stud, Kildangan.

Notable plantings in Australia include the Avenue of Honour in Ballarat, and Brisbane Avenue, Canberra.[34] Mature specimens line the main street in Healesville, Victoria.[35] Some very large specimens survive in New Zealand, notably in Auckland where it is considered "the finest of all the elms" in that city. The 16 trees planted in 1922 around the rotunda at Auckland Zoo were described as "magnificent... with stately crowns and spreading, drooping branches".[36][37]

'Vegeta'-like cultivars

F1 hybrids between Wych and Field Elm (e.g. Huntingdon Elm) are fully fertile, but produce widely variant progeny.[38] An elm at Magdalen College, Oxford, long believed to be a wych elm, then identified by Elwes as a 'Vegeta'-type hybrid, was for a time the largest elm known in Britain before it was blown down in 1911 (see under U. × hollandica). An old 'Vegeta'-type hybrid (girth 4.5 m) stands (2017) at the University College sports ground, Abingdon Road, Oxford.[39] Bean noted that hybrids similar to Huntingdon occur naturally in parts of east-central England and may have been raised by nurseries and distributed, and that the raising and distributing of cultivars from the seed of Huntingdon will have produced elms similar to, but not the true Huntingdon clone.[14]

  • Old 'Vegeta'-type hybrid, University College sports ground, Abingdon Road, Oxford (2017)
  • Bark of University College elm, Oxford
  • Autumn leaves of University College elm
  • U. × hollandica, Gayfield Square, Edinburgh
  • Bole of same
  • Leaves of same

A mature weeping elm survives (2010) near Actons Farm in the vicinity of the Rivers Nursery, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, which closed in the 1980s. The tree has leaves of similar size to those of the Huntingdon Elm, but slightly oblong in shape, and often either revolute or convolute. The proximity of the Actons tree to the Rivers Nursery would seem more than coincidence, as the nursery was known to have sold seedlings, rather than clones, of the Huntingdon Elm, a practice which resulted in a lawsuit brought by a disgruntled nurseryman at the Oxford Assizes in 1847.[40] Elwes noted that in Hertfordshire and along the western borders of Essex "the most graceful form of this tree [weeping elm] may be seen in perfection", but he identified it as Ulmus nitens (Ulmus minor).[3]

The weeping elm once grown at Kew as 'Wentworthii Pendula' was identified by Melville as U. × vegeta, though its leaf and form differ from those of Huntingdon Elm.

Synonymy
  • Ulmus huntingdonensis: Dieck (Zöschen, Germany) Haupt-catalog der Obst- und gehölzbaumschulen des ritterguts Zöschen bei Merseburg supplement 1, 1887, p. 28.
  • Ulmus huntingdonii Hort.: Rehder, in Bailey, The standard cyclopedia of horticulture 6: 3411, 1917, in synonymy.

Hybrid cultivars
  • 'Commelin'. U.'260' (Ulmus × hollandica × Ulmus pumila) raised at Wageningen but never commercially released; a few specimens survive as part of the Brighton & Hove CC NCCPG Elm Collection at Happy Valley Park, Woodingdean, and at the Wijdemeren City Council Elm collection in The Netherlands, five were planted on the Overmeerseweg and Dammerweg in Nederhorst den Berg in 2015.

Accessions

North America

Europe

Australasia

Nurseries

Australasia
  • Established Tree Transplanters Pty. Ltd., Wandin, Victoria, Australia.

Europe
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References
  1. "BSBI List 2007". Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2015-01-25. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  2. John Ingram in The Gardeners' Chronicle, 1847, p.507, p.526
  3. Elwes, Henry John; Henry, Augustine (1913). The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland. 7. pp. 1879–1882.
  4. White, J. & More, D. (2002). Trees of Britain and northern Europe. Cassell, London.
  5. Rackham, Oliver (1976). Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. J. M. Dent, London.
  6. Hanson, M. W. (1990). Essex elm. London: Essex Field Club. ISBN 978-0-905637-15-0. Retrieved 2017-10-24.
  7. Diagnostic photographs of young and mature Huntingdon elms, "Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links". Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved May 14, 2010.
  8. Jobling & Mitchell, Field Recognition of British Elms, Forestry Commission Booklet (1974), p.19, fig.33
  9. Schneider, Camillo Karl (1906). Illustriertes Handbuch der Laubholzkunde. 1. Jena G. Fischer. p. 215
  10. bioportal.naturalis.nl, specimen L.1582355 Hinchingbrooke Park leaves collected by Heybroek, 1960
  11. Chichester Elm leaves, Queens' College Cambridge (1)
  12. Chichester Elm leaves, Queens' College Cambridge (2)
  13. Smith, Richard (2014). "The Elms in the grove". Queens' College Record: 28–29. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  14. Bean, W. J. (1981). Trees and shrubs hardy in Great Britain, 7th edition. Murray, England.
  15. Gurney, R. (1958). Trees of Britain. Faber & Faber, London.
  16. "Les Ormes de France" (PDF). Revue de botanique appliquée et d'agriculture coloniale. 22 (254): 441. 1942.
  17. Katalog (PDF). 108. Berlin, Germany: L. Späth Baumschulenweg. 1902–1903. pp. 132–133.
  18. Ulrich, C. (1894), Katalog Drzew i Krezewow, C. Ulrich, Rok 1893-94, Warszawa
  19. Hovey & Co., Boston, Mass., Catalogue of ornamental trees & shrubs, evergreens and climbing plants, 1855, p.5
  20. Bobbink and Atkins, Rutherford. N.J. 1902. p. 51.
  21. General catalogue, 1904 : choice hardy trees, shrubs, evergreens, roses, herbaceous plants, fruits, etc. New York: Frederick W. Kelsey. 1904. p. 18.
  22. Welch, G. L. & Co. Plumfield Nurseries, catalog 1913. Plumfield Nurseries, Fremont, Nebraska.
  23. Saunders, William; Macoun, William Tyrrell (1899). Catalogue of the trees and shrubs in the arboretum and botanic gardens at the central experimental farm (2 ed.). pp. 74–75.
  24. Brookes, Margaret, & Barley, Richard, Plants listed in nursery catalogues in Victoria, 1855-1889 (Ornamental Plant Collection Association, South Yarra, Victoria, 1992), p.303–304
  25. amsterdamsebomen.nl
  26. RBGE herbarium specimen E00824827, data.rbge.org.uk
  27. "Huntingdon elm felled in Higham Ferrers". 2014.
  28. Johnson, O. (2011). Champion Trees of Britain & Ireland, p. 169. Kew Publishing, Kew, London; ISBN 9781842464526.
  29. Article on The Marylebone Elm, Trees for Cities web-page
  30. "Google Street View - Yarborough Crescent". Google Street View.
  31. "Google Street View - Brunswick Avenue". Google Street View.
  32. Richard Bland, 'The Downs Observer' in The Bristol Six, March 2016, p.14
  33. "Sheffield Huntingdon Elm to get Tree of the Year cash - BBC News". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-06-29.
  34. Spencer, R., Hawker, J. and Lumley, P. (1991). Elms in Australia. Australia: Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. ISBN 0-7241-9962-4
  35. Spencer, Roger, ed., Horticultural Flora of South-Eastern Australia, Vol. 2 (Sydney, 1995), p.112
  36. Auckland Botanical Society Journal (2003). Vol. 58 (1), June 2003. ISSN 0113-4132
  37. Photograph of Huntingdon Elm, Point Erin Park, Herne Bay, New Zealand, bts.nzpcn.org.nz
  38. Richens, R. H. (1983). Elm. Cambridge University Press.
  39. "Google Street View - Sunningwell Road". Google Street View.
  40. Ingram, J. (1847). The Huntingdon Elm - Bates v. Rivers. Gardeners' Chronicle, 526.
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