Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.
Ulmus glabraHudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Ural Mountains, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reaches its southern limit in Europe; it is also found in Iran. A large deciduous tree, it is essentially a montane species, growing at elevations up to 1,500 m (4,900 ft), preferring sites with moist soils and high humidity. The tree can form pure forests in Scandinavia and occurs as far north as latitude 67°N at Beiarn in Norway. It has been successfully introduced as far north as Tromsø and Alta in northern Norway (70°N). It has also been successfully introduced to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland (61°N).
Magnolia sieboldii, or Siebold's magnolia, also known as Korean mountain magnolia and Oyama magnolia, is a species of Magnolia native to east Asia in China, Japan, and Korea. It is named after the German doctor Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866).
Ulmus pumila, the Siberian elm, is a tree native to Asia. It is also known as the Asiatic elm and dwarf elm, but sometimes miscalled the 'Chinese elm'. U. pumila has been widely cultivated throughout Asia, North America, Argentina, and southern Europe, becoming naturalized in many places, notably across much of the United States.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Sarniensis', known variously as Guernsey elm, Jersey elm, Wheatley elm, or Southampton elm, was first described by MacCulloch in 1815 from trees on Guernsey, and was planted in the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens in the 1820s. It was listed in the Loddiges catalogue of 1836 as Ulmus sarniensis and by Loudon in Hortus lignosus londinensis (1838) as U. campestris var. sarniensis. The origin of the tree remains obscure; Richens believed it "a mutant of a French population of Field elm", noting that "elms of similar leaf-form occur in Cotentin and in northern Brittany. They vary much in habit but some have a tendency to pyramidal growth. Whether the distinctive habit first developed on the mainland or in Guernsey is uncertain."
The Dutch hybrid cultivar Ulmus 'Dodoens' was derived from a selfed seedling of a crossing of the Exeter Elm Ulmus 'Exoniensis' with the Himalayan Elm Ulmus wallichiana at the Dorschkamp Research Institute for Forestry & Landscape Planning, Wageningen. The tree was one of several cultivars prepared for release in 1970, but delayed by the outbreak of the second, far more aggressive strain of Dutch elm disease.
Ulmus 'Regal' is an American hybrid elm cultivar developed by the University of Wisconsin–Madison and released in 1983. 'Regal' was derived from seeds arising from the crossing of the Dutch hybrid clones 'Commelin' and '215' sent in 1960 by Hans M. Heybroek of the Dorschkamp Research Institute for Forestry & Landscape Planning, Wageningen, Netherlands.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Horizontalis', commonly known as the Weeping Wych Elm or Horizontal Elm, was discovered in a Perth nursery circa 1816. The tree was originally identified as 'Pendula' by Loddiges (London), in his catalogue of 1836, a name adopted by Loudon two years later in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, 3: 1398, 1838, but later sunk as a synonym for 'Horizontalis'.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis Aurea', probably a "golden" form of Ulmus minor 'Viminalis', was raised before 1866 by Egide Rosseels of Louvain, who was known to have supplied 'Viminalis'.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Cornuta', in cultivation before 1845 – Fontaine (1968) gives its provenance as France, 1835 – is a little-known tree, finally identified as a cultivar of U. glabra by Boom in Nederlandse Dendrologie 1: 157, 1959.
Ulmus minor 'Rueppellii' is a Field Elm cultivar said to have been introduced to Europe from Tashkent by the Späth nursery, Berlin. Noted in 1881 as a 'new elm', it was listed in Späth Catalogue 73, p. 124, 1888–89, and in subsequent catalogues, as Ulmus campestris Rueppelli, and later by Krüssmann as a cultivar.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Koopmannii' was cloned from a specimen raised from seed sent from Margilan, Turkestan by Koopmann to the Botanischer Garten Berlin c. 1880. Noted in 1881 as a 'new elm', it was later listed by the Späth nursery, catalogue no. 62, p. 6. 101, 1885, as Ulmus Koopmannii, and later by Krüssmann in 1962 as a cultivar of U. minor. Margilan is beyond the main range of Ulmus minor. Augustine Henry, who saw the specimens in Berlin and Kew, believed Koopmann's Elm to be a form of Ulmus pumila, a view not shared by Rehder of the Arbold Arboretum. Ascherson & Graebner said the tree produced 'very numerous root shoots', which suggests it may be a cultivar of U. minor. Until DNA analysis can confirm its origin, the cultivar is now treated as Ulmus 'Koopmannii'.
The dwarf wych elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Nana', a very slow growing shrub that with time forms a small tree, is of unknown origin. It was listed in the Simon-Louis 1869 catalogue as Ulmus montana nana. Henry (1913), referring his readers to an account of the Kew specimen in the journal Woods and Forests, 1884, suggested that it may have originated from a witch's broom. It is usually classified as a form of Ulmus glabra and is known widely as the 'Dwarf Wych Elm'. However, the ancestry of 'Nana' has been disputed in more recent years, Melville considering the specimen once grown at Kew to have been a cultivar of Ulmus × hollandica.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Folia Rubra' was listed as Ulmus campestris foliis rubris by Louis de Smet in his catalogue of 1877, and Edouard Pynaert van Geert in the same year who obtained the tree from M. Gaujard of Wetteren, Belgium. An U. campestris fol. rubrisHort. was distributed by the Späth nursery, Berlin, in the 1890s and early 1900s.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Pendula Variegata' was first described in 1850, and later by J. F. Wood in The Midland Florist and Suburban Horticulturist (1851) as U. montana pendula variegata, the 'broad-leaved variegated weeping mountain elm', and was said by him to have originated in and been distributed by the Pontey nursery of Kirkheaton, Huddersfield, Yorkshire. It was listed by Hartwig & Rümpler in Illustrirtes Gehölzbuch (1875) as Ulmus montana (:glabra) var. pendula variegataHort.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Scampstoniensis', the Scampston Elm or Scampston Weeping Elm, is said to have come from Scampston Hall, Yorkshire, England, before 1810. Loudon opined that a tree of the same name at the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden in 1834, 18 feet (5.5 m) high at 8 years old "differed little from the species". Henry described the tree, from a specimen growing in Victoria Park, Bath, as "a weeping form of U. nitens" [:Ulmus minor ]; however Green considered it "probably a form of Ulmus × hollandica". Writing in 1831, Loudon said that the tree was supposed to have originated in America. U. minor is not, however, an American species, so if the tree was brought from America, it must originally have been taken there from Europe. There was an 'American Plantation' at Scampston, which may be related to this supposition. A number of old specimens of 'Scampstoniensis' in this plantation were blown down in a great gale of October 1881; younger specimens were still present at Scampston in 1911.
Leeds in West Yorkshire, England is a tourist destination.
The Ulmus pumila cultivar 'Aurescens' was introduced by Georg Dieck at the National Arboretum, Zöschen, Germany, circa 1885. Dieck grew the tree from seed collected in the Ili valley, Turkestan by the lawyer and amateur naturalist Vladislav E. Niedzwiecki while in exile there. Dieck originally named the tree U. pinnato-ramosaf.aurescens.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Dicksonii', commonly known as Dickson's Golden Elm, is a yellow-leaved tree raised in Chester in 1900 by Dickson's Nursery, which distributed it from the autumn of 1907 as 'Golden Cornish Elm'. 'Cornish Elm' was the name often given in error to Guernsey or Wheatley Elm by the local authorities who planted the latter extensively, an error which may have influenced the choice of name by Dickson's nursery. 'Dicksonii' is usually listed as a variety of Guernsey Elm rather than Cornish Elm, Bean giving 'Wheatleyi Aurea' as a synonym, and Hillier 'Sarniensis Aurea' and later U. × sarniensis 'Dicksonii'. Clibrans' nursery of Altrincham, however, described it (1922) as otherwise identical "in habit and constitution" to 'type' Cornish Elm. The Späth nursery of Berlin distributed it from c.1913 as U. campestris cornubiensis Dicksonii. The nursery Messieurs Otin père et fils of Saint-Étienne sold an Ulmus Wheatleyi aurea pyramidalis, with leaves marbled yellow, in 1882, earlier than Dickson's introduction.
