Camperdownii (elm cultivar)
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The Camperdown Elm Ulmus glabra Camperdownii is a cultivar which cannot reproduce from seed. The grafted Camperdown Elm slowly develops a broad, flat head that may eventually build as high as 4 m (13 feet) and an incommensurately wide crown with a contorted, weeping habit. This cultivar requires a large open space in order to develop fully, and so is not recommended for small home grounds. The tree is often confused with the much taller Horizontalis (Weeping Wych Elm) owing to both being given the epithet 'Pendula' at some stage.
About 1835 - 1840 (often miscalled as '1640'), the Earl of Camperdown’s head forester, David Taylor, discovered a mutant contorted branch growing along the ground in the forest at Camperdown House, in Dundee, Scotland. The earl's gardener produced the first Camperdown Elm by grafting it to the trunk of a Wych Elm Ulmus glabra. Every Camperdown Elm in the world is from a cutting taken from that original mutant cutting and is usually grafted on a Wych elm trunk. Other grafting stock has been used, including Dutch elm Ulmus × hollandica and English Elm, although the latter tends to sucker after a while. The tree is grafted at circa 1.5 m above ground level.
Camperdown Elms satisfied a mid-Victorian passion for curiosities in the 'Gardenesque' gardens then in vogue. Many examples were planted, as 'rarities', in Britain and America, wherever elite gardens were extensive enough for tree collections (see Arboretum). There are many on university campuses, often planted as memorials. In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, a Camperdown Elm planted in 1872 near the Boat House has developed into a picturesque weatherbeaten specimen, no more than four metres high, like an oversized bonsai; this tree is considered the outstanding specimen tree in Prospect Park. Camperdown Elms are used in stately landscaping of American university campuses, such as at the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, where a number were planted many decades ago.[1]
Camperdown Elm is hardy, suffering more from summer drought than winter cold (to zone 4). Since it is a cultivar of the very susceptible Wych Elm, it is too very susceptible to Dutch Elm disease; However there are still many examples to be found in parks and gardens across the British Isles despite this. It tends to avoid detection by Scolytae Beetles (a major vector in the transportation of Dutch Elm Disease), because of its diminutive height. In North America it often escapes infection, possibly because the American vectors of the disease do not feed on Wych Elm; however its leaves are disfigured there by leaf-mining and leaf-rolling insects, such as the Elm casebearer, Coleophora ulmifoliella [1].
NB. The tree is considered a nothomorph of U. x hollandica by Green (1964), not U. glabra.
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[edit] Arboreta etc. accessions
[edit] North America
- Arnold Arboretum, acc. no. 352-51.
- Bartlett Tree Experts [2], acc. nos. 1375, 2002-221.
- Longwood Gardens, acc. no. 2000-1338.
- New York Botanical Garden, acc. no. 529/89.
- Scott Arboretum, acc. no. 70-163
- Smith College, acc. no. 3166PA.
[edit] Europe
[edit] Nurseries
[edit] North America
(Widely available)
[edit] Europe
(Widely available)
[edit] Synonymy
- Ulmus montana (: glabra) var. pendula: Kirchner, in Petzold & Kirchner, Arb. Muscav., 565, 1864.
- Ulmus montana (: glabra) var. pendula camperdownii Hort.: Henry, in Henry & Elwes, Trees of Great Britain & Ireland, 7: 1867, 1913.
- Ulmus montana (: glabra) pendula nova Hort.: Kirchner, in Petzold & Kirchner, Arb. Muscav. 565, 1864, name in synonymy.
- Ulmus scampstoniensis pendula: Petzold, in Petzold & Kirchner, Arb. Muscav. 565, 1864.
[edit] References
- ^ J.Torrey, A.Kratter et. al., Environmental Impact Report for the Business Administration Building, University of California, Berkeley, Earth Metrics Incorporated, California State Clearinghouse, April, 1989
- Hilliers' Manual of Trees & Shrubs, 4th Ed., (1977), David & Charles, Newton Abbot, UK.
- White, J. & More, D. (2002). Trees of Britain and Northern Europe, Cassell's, London.
