The cultivation of elms in Australia began in the first half of the 19th century, when British settlers imported species and cultivars from their former homelands. Owing to the demise of elms in the northern hemisphere as a result of the Dutch elm disease pandemic, the mature trees in Australia's parks and gardens are now regarded as amongst the most significant in the world.
A large number of species and cultivars are grown in Australia. The commercial availability and popularity of the various varieties has changed over time. "Deliberate planting of selected clones," wrote Spencer (1995) "combined with chance hybridisation, has resulted in a mix of elms rather different from that in England." [1]
English Elm (Ulmus procera) was a popular tree for park and avenue planting in the nineteenth century. One of the oldest known exotic trees in Victoria is the sole survivor of four planted in the newly established Royal Botanic Gardens in 1846. [2]
Cultivars of the hybrid Dutch Elm (Ulmus x hollandica) are among the most commonly seen elms in Australia. They include 'Major', 'Vegeta', 'Dauvessei', 'Wredei', 'Canadian Giant' / 'Canadian Elm', and 'Purpurascens'. 'Major' was distributed in Victoria from the 1850s and 'Vegeta' from the 1860s. [3] 'Cicestria' was marketed in Australia in the early 20th century by the former Gembrook or Nobelius Nursery. Some hybrid elms of these group introduced to Australia from England are "commonly and erroneously referred to [in Australia] as 'English Elm' ". [4] Similarly, an old tree labelled U. procera in Dunedin Botanic Garden, New Zealand (2023), may be an elm from England, but it is not the English elm clone. [5]
Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia) became commercially available in Australia in the late 1850s and regained popularity in the 1980s. In recent years a number of Chinese Elm cultivars have been introduced into cultivation including the American bred variety 'Emer I', the Japanese introductions 'Frosty' and 'Nire-keyaki', and a number of Australian selections including 'Burnley Select', 'Churchyard', 'Todd' and 'Yarralumla'. [12] [13] [14]
Wych Elm or Scots Elm (Ulmus glabraHuds.) was introduced to Australia in 1860. A number of related cultivars were planted as "rarities" in the Victorian era including the Weeping Wych Elm 'Horizontalis' (from 1865 [3] ), the Camperdown Elm and the Exeter Elm (both from 1873 [3] ). The Golden Elm (U. glabra 'Lutescens'), which was introduced to Australia in the early 1900s, has become one of the most popular varieties of elms in the country. In the past it was often mistakenly sold by nurseries under the name 'Louis van Houtte'. [12]
Smooth-leaved Elm (Ulmus minor subsp. minor), and Field Elm ( Ulmus minor ) cultivars other than English Elm, are not as common in Australia as other species. The Silver Elm (U. minor 'Variegata') is the most commonly seen variety of this species, particularly in older botanic gardens and parks. Other introductions include a cultivar called 'Cornubiensis' but not type-Cornish elm (Ulmus minor 'Stricta'), [15] Guernsey Elm (Ulmus minor 'Sarniensis'), Cork-barked elm [16] (Ulmus minor var. suberosa(Moench), Rehder, = Ulmus minor Mill.), [12] Weeping cork-barked elm (possibly Ulmus minor 'Propendens'), [17] pendulous field elm (Ulmus minor 'Pendula'), [18] [19] as well as Ulmus minor 'Viminalis' and its related cultivars 'Viminalis Aurea', 'Viminalis Marginata'. A fastigiate form of Smooth-leaved Elm was selected by the City of Melbourne for street planting, but was later found to have a problem with spitting at "V" crotches.
American Elm (Ulmus americana) was recorded in nineteenth century plant catalogues, but the only known currently living specimens were obtained from the Yarralumla Nursery in Canberra in 1985. [12] There is a heritage-listed avenue of American Elm in Grant Crescent, Griffith, Australian Capital Territory. [20]
A number of other species and cultivars have been introduced including Ulmus davidiana , U. glaucescens var. lasiocarpa, European White Elm (Ulmus laevis), Mexican Elm (U. mexicana), U. propinqua, Siberian Elm (U. pumila), Himalayan Elm (Ulmus wallichiana), and U. 'Jacqueline Hillier'. The cultivars 'Dovaei' and 'Louis van Houtte' were introduced to Australia but are rarely seen in cultivation. The hybrid cultivars 'Dodoens', 'Groeneveld', 'Lobel', 'Plantyn', 'Urban' and 'Sapporo Autumn Gold' were all imported into Australia from The Netherlands via New Zealand in 1986. [12]
The history of elms in Australia extends back to at least 1803 when Governor King included them in a list of plants dispatched from England. In 1845 two elms, Ulmus campestris and Ulmus suberosa were listed in a nursery catalogue of James Dickson in Hobart. [12] Historically, most planting of elms has occurred in south-eastern Australia, including the states of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. The largest number of elm species are found in Victoria. The most common species found in older parks and gardens are the English elm and the Dutch elm. In Melbourne, boulevard plantings of elms were established from the latter half of the nineteenth century in Royal Parade, Victoria Parade and within the Fitzroy Gardens, and are registered as significant by the National Trust of Victoria. [21] In many of the larger towns and cities in Victoria, the planting of elms in avenue plantings began to become popular in the late nineteenth century, a notable example being the 1876 planting in Finlay Avenue in Camperdown. Following World War I, Avenues of Honour were established to commemorate those who served and died. Although a variety of exotic species were utilised, the avenues at Ballarat (22 kilometres long), Bacchus Marsh, Creswick, Newstead, Wallan, Digby and Traralgon were either primarily or exclusively planted with English Elm and Dutch elms. [21] In 1997, there were 33,789 elms on council-controlled land within the state and the amount on private land was estimated to be at least as many. [22] In 2005, the City of Melbourne recorded that it had 6300 elms in its parks and boulevards. [23] In 1997 the amenity value of the elms in Melbourne's boulevards was estimated to be $39 million. [22]
In New South Wales, elms are predominantly found in Bowral, Orange, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga and Albury. They have also widely planted in Canberra. In Tasmania many older towns in the Midlands and around the eastern coast such as Hobart Launceston, Ross, Port Arthur have plantings in parks and gardens. South Australia's elms are found in the Barossa Valley and Mount Gambier in the various Botanic Gardens. Elms are relatively uncommon in Western Australia and Queensland. [12]
The extent to which elms in Australia have been propagated by seed rather than by cloning is unclear, but it is known that hybrids of the Ulmushollandica group do not usually come true to "type" if grown from seed. [24] Melbourne Botanic Gardens was able to raise seedlings from the "few" viable seeds of an old 'English Elm' in the collection, producing "highly variable" offspring. [25] "This seedling variation," wrote Roger Spencer (Horticultural Flora of South-Eastern Australia, 1995), "suggests one possible source of the variation to be found in these trees ['English elm'] in Australia." [25] In addition, "Chance hybridisation has resulted in a mix of elms rather different from that in England". [26] Melville believed that there were Ulmus procera × Ulmus minor hybrids present in Victoria. [25]
A number of elm species have become naturalised, predominantly in localised areas. Dutch elm has become naturalised in South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, and Tasmania, Chinese elm in Queensland, New South Wales (including the Kosciuszko National Park) and Victoria, and Ulmus minor in the ACT. English Elm is naturalised in South Australia and Victoria and has been recorded as naturalised in Porongurup National Park in Western Australia in 1987 and also in Armidale and Wollombi in New South Wales. [27] [28] [29]
Although elms in Australia exist far away from their natural habitat and associated pest and disease problems, a few problematic insect species have managed to infiltrate Australia's strict quarantine defences . The elm leaf beetle was first discovered on the Mornington Peninsula in 1989 and had spread to the City of Melbourne by 1991. [22] The beetles have caused significant damage to elm species since that time, although the City of Melbourne keeps them in check with a regular spraying regime. [23] Another less serious insect pest is the elm tree leafhopper, which causes speckling of leaves resulting in a silvery appearance.
Unlike most other countries that have elm trees, Australia has not yet been subjected to Dutch Elm Disease, although the vector of the disease, the elm bark beetle, was first officially recorded in Melbourne in 1974. The City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government have jointly developed a Dutch elm disease contingency plan in case of an outbreak. [22] [23]
Other diseases include Bacterial Wetwood, various viral and fungal diseases, cankers including Coral Spot, and root diseases caused by cinnamon fungus or honey fungus. [12]
The Friends of the Elms Inc. (FOTE), is a voluntary not-for-profit organisation which was founded in 1990 for the purpose of raising awareness of the importance of Elms and assisting to fund research into the potential threats of pests and disease. FOTE is dedicated to raising community awareness of the threats to Australia’s elms, and assisting individuals and local councils in the recording and monitoring of elm trees on both public and private land. FOTE also raises funds to support research into ways to combat insect attack, Elm Leaf Beetle, and prevent the spread of Dutch Elm Disease if it arrives in Australia. It encourages the public to register elm trees that they see around their neighbourhood. Once an elm tree has been positively identified, it is added to the National Register of Elms.
The field elm cultivar 'Atinia' , commonly known as the English elm, formerly common elm and horse may, and more lately the Atinian elm was, before the spread of Dutch elm disease, the most common field elm in central southern England, though not native there, and one of the largest and fastest-growing deciduous trees in Europe. R. H. Richens noted that elm populations exist in north-west Spain and northern Portugal, and on the Mediterranean coast of France that "closely resemble the English elm" and appear to be "trees of long standing" in those regions rather than recent introductions. Augustine Henry had earlier noted that the supposed English elms planted extensively in the Royal Park at Aranjuez from the late 16th century onwards, specimens said to have been introduced from England by Philip II and "differing in no respects from the English elm in England", behaved as native trees in Spain. He suggested that the tree "may be a true native of Spain, indigenous in the alluvial plains of the great rivers, now almost completely deforested".
Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta', sometimes known as the Huntingdon Elm, is an old English hybrid cultivar raised at Brampton, near Huntingdon, by nurserymen Wood & Ingram in 1746, allegedly from seed collected at nearby Hinchingbrooke Park. In Augustine Henry's day, in the later 19th century, the elms in Hinchingbrooke Park were U. nitens. Richens, noting that wych elm is rare in Huntingdonshire, normally flowering four to six weeks later than field elm, pointed out that unusually favourable circumstances would have had to coincide to produce such seed: "It is possible that, some time in the eighteenth century, the threefold requirements of synchronous flowering of the two species, a south-west wind", "and a mild spring permitting the ripening of the samaras, were met."
Ulmus minorMill., the field elm, is by far the most polymorphic of the European species, although its taxonomy remains a matter of contention. Its natural range is predominantly south European, extending to Asia Minor and Iran; its northern outposts are the Baltic islands of Öland and Gotland, although it may have been introduced by humans. The tree's typical habitat is low-lying forest along the main rivers, growing in association with oak and ash, where it tolerates summer floods as well as droughts.
The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Stricta', known as Cornish elm, was commonly found in South West England, Brittany, and south-west Ireland, until the arrival of Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. The origin of Cornish elm in England remains a matter of contention. It is commonly assumed to have been introduced from Brittany. It is also considered possible that the tree may have survived the ice ages on lands to the south of Cornwall long since lost to the sea. Henry thought it "probably native in the south of Ireland". Dr Max Coleman of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, arguing in his 2002 paper on British elms that there was no clear distinction between species and subspecies, suggested that known or suspected clones of Ulmus minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, preferred the designation U. minor 'Stricta' to Ulmus minor var. stricta. The DNA of 'Stricta' has been investigated and the cultivar is now known to be a clone.
Ulmus × hollandica 'Major' is a distinctive cultivar that in England came to be known specifically as theDutch Elm, although all naturally occurring Field Elm Ulmus minor × Wych Elm U. glabra hybrids are loosely termed 'Dutch elm'. It is also known by the cultivar name 'Hollandica'. Nellie Bancroft considered 'Major' either an F2 hybrid or a backcrossing with one of its parents.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Wredei', also known as Ulmus × hollandica 'Dampieri Aurea' and sometimes marketed as Golden Elm, originated as a sport of the cultivar 'Dampieri' at the Alt-Geltow Arboretum, near Potsdam, Germany, in 1875.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Atinia Variegata', the Variegated-leaved common English Elm, formerly known as U. procera 'Argenteo-Variegata' and described by Weston (1770) as U. campestris argenteo-variegata, is believed to have originated in England in the seventeenth century and to have been cultivated since the eighteenth. The Oxford botanist Robert Plot mentioned in a 1677 Flora a variegated elm in Dorset, where English Elm is the common field elm. Elwes and Henry (1913) had no doubt that the cultivar was of English origin, "as it agrees with the English Elm in all its essential characters". At the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, the tree was listed as U. procera 'Marginata', as the variegation is sometimes most obvious on leaf-margins.
The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Lutescens', commonly known as the Golden Wych Elm, arose as a sort of a wych found in the York area in the early 19th century by W. Pontey of Pontey's nursery, Kirkheaton, Huddersfield, who propagated and distributed it. The original tree he named the Gallows Elm for its proximity to a gallows near York. Loudon in The Gardener's Magazine (1839) identified it as a form of Ulmus montana, adding 'Lutescens' by analogy with Corstorphine sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus 'Lutescens'.
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 Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis Marginata', a variegated form of Ulmus minor 'Viminalis', was first listed as Ulmus campestris var. viminalis marginataHort. by Kirchner in 1864. Both Van Houtte and Späth marketed an U. campestris viminalis marginata in the late 19th century.
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Purpurea', the purple-leaved elm, was listed and described as Ulmus Stricta Purpurea, the 'Upright Purpled-leaved Elm', by John Frederick Wood, F.H.S., in The Midland Florist and Suburban Horticulturist (1851), as Ulmus purpureaHort. by Wesmael (1863), and as Ulmus campestris var. purpurea, syn. Ulmus purpureaHort. by Petzold and Kirchner in Arboretum Muscaviense (1864). Koch's description followed (1872), the various descriptions appearing to tally. Henry (1913) noted that the Ulmus campestris var. purpureaPetz. & Kirchn. grown at Kew as U. montana var. purpurea was "probably of hybrid origin", Ulmus montana being used at the time both for wych elm cultivars and for some of the U. × hollandica group. His description of Kew's U. montana var. purpurea matches that of the commonly-planted 'Purpurea' of the 20th century. His discussion of it (1913) under U. campestris, however, his name for English Elm, may be the reason why 'Purpurea' is sometimes erroneously called U. procera 'Purpurea' (as in USA and Sweden.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera' [:shade-giving] was originally cultivated in Iran, where it was widely planted as an ornamental and occasionally grew to a great size, being known there as 'Nalband' Persian: نعلبند [:the tree of the farriers]. Litvinov considered it a cultivar of a wild elm with a dense crown that he called U. densa, from the mountains of Turkestan, Ferghana, and Aksu. Non-rounded forms of 'Umbraculifera' are also found in Isfahan Province, Iran. Zielińksi in Flora Iranica considered it an U. minor cultivar.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Argenteo-Variegata' or simply 'Variegata', known in Australasia and North America as Silver Elm or Tartan Elm, is said to have been cultivated in France from 1772. Green noted that variegated forms of Field Elm "arise frequently, and several clones may have been known under this name". Dumont de Courset (1802) listed an U. campestris var. glabra variegata, Loudon (1838) an U. nitens var. variegata, and Wesmael (1863) an U. campestris var. nuda microphylla variegata.
Ulmus 'Louis van Houtte' is believed to have been first cultivated in Ghent, Belgium circa 1863. It was first mentioned by Franz Deegen in 1886. It was once thought a cultivar of English Elm Ulmus minor 'Atinia', though this derivation has long been questioned; W. J. Bean called it "an elm of uncertain status". Its dissimilarity from the type and its Belgian provenance make the 'Atinia' attribution unlikely. Fontaine (1968) considered it probably a form of U. × hollandica.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis Pulverulenta' (:'powdery'), also known as 'Viminalis Variegata', a variegated form of U. minor 'Viminalis', was first mentioned by Dieck, in 1885 as U. scabra viminalis pulverulentaHort., but without description. Nursery, arboretum, and herbarium specimens confirm that this cultivar was sometimes regarded as synonymous with U. minor 'Viminalis Marginata', first listed in 1864, which is variegated mostly on the leaf margin. It is likely, however, that 'Pulverulenta' was the U. 'Viminalis Variegata', Variegated Twiggy-branched elm, that was listed and described by John Frederick Wood, F.H.S., in The Midland Florist and Suburban Horticulturist 1847 and 1851, pre-dating both Kirchner and Dieck. Wood did not specify the nature of the variegation.
The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Pendula' was said to have been raised in Belgium in 1863. It was listed as Ulmus sativa pendula by C. de Vos in 1887, and by Boom in 1959 as a cultivar.
The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Elegantissima' was the name given by A. R. Horwood in his Flora of Leicestershire and Rutland (1933) to an elm found in those counties and later identified by Melville as a natural hybrid between Wych Elm and Plot Elm. According to Melville, the hybrid occurs in the main areas of Plot Elm distribution, where it is more common than Plot Elm itself. The tree is sometimes known simply as the 'Midlands Elm'.
The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis' (:'willow-like'), occasionally referred to as the twiggy field elm, was raised by Masters in 1817, and listed in 1831 as U. campestris viminalis, without description. Loudon added a general description in 1838, and the Cambridge University Herbarium acquired a leaf specimen of the tree in 1866. Moss, writing in 1912, said that the Ulmus campestris viminalis from Cambridge University Herbarium was the only elm he thought agreed with the original Plot's elm as illustrated by Dr. Plot in 1677 from specimens growing in an avenue and coppice at Hanwell near Banbury. Elwes and Henry (1913) also considered Loudon's Ulmus campestris viminalis to be Dr Plot's elm. Its 19th-century name, U. campestris var. viminalis, led the cultivar to be classified for a time as a variety of English Elm. On the Continent, 'Viminalis' was the Ulmus antarcticaHort., 'zierliche Ulme' [:'dainty elm'] of Kirchner's Arboretum Muscaviense (1864).
The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor'Viminalis Pendula', a weeping form of U. minor 'Viminalis', was first listed c.1890 as Ulmus antarctica pendulaHort., and briefly described, by the Späth nursery of Berlin, which distributed it from the late 19th century. On the continent it was also known as U. campestris antarctica pendula. Maxwell T. Masters in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society (1891) listed it as U. viminalis pendula.
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