| Ulmus | |
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'Atropurpurea' foliage, Brighton, UK |
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| Details | |
| Cultivar | 'Atropurpurea' |
| Origin | Späth nursery, Berlin, Germany |
The elm cultivar 'Atropurpurea' was raised from seed at the Späth nursery in Berlin, Germany, circa 1881 as Ulmus montana (: glabra) atropurpurea [1], but was later classed as a cultivar by Boom [5] in Ned. Dendr. 1: 157, 1959 [2]. 'Atropurpurea' is probably synonymous with 'Purpurea'.
The ancestry of the tree remains obscure, but the fact that 'Atropurpurea' occasionally produces suckers suggests an Ulmus minor hybrid origin. The Dutch elm-authority F. J. Fontaine conjectured U. glabra × U. minor subsp. angustifolia,[3] naming the tree U. × hollandica 'Purpurascens'.[4][5][6] Both the leaves and the habit of 'Atropurpurea' appear to support this conjecture, but 'Atropurpurea' comes into leaf earlier than either.
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'Atropurpurea' grows to > 25 m in height, with straggling and irregular ascending branches; the bark has a reddish-brown hue. The tree has slightly folded, dark-green leaves (the darkest green of all the elms) which, like the shoots, have a brief dark-purple flush in spring.[7][8] Prior to flushing, the leaf-buds are long, sharply pointed, and dark purple. The underside of the leaves, after the spring purple flush, becomes an olive green. The leaves' increasing fold as the year progresses gives the foliage a greyish hue later.
A specimen at the Ryston Hall [6], Norfolk, arboretum, obtained from the Späth nursery before 1914 [9], was killed by the earlier strain of Dutch elm disease prevalent in the 1930s. Six mature specimens in Edinburgh's Warriston cemetery were felled c.2000 in the more recent outbreak. Ignorance of this cultivar may have occasioned unnecessary felling: its naturally upcurled, greyish foliage in late summer may be mistaken for foliage affected by Dutch elm disease.
Several trees still survive in the UK and Australia. In Edinburgh, only one of the seven mature specimens growing in Warriston Cemetery (lower level) remained by 2011 (height 20 m, girth 2.2 m), though a vigorous sucker has now become a 5 m tree. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh took cuttings in the 1990s. In Australia the tree was planted after WW1 in the Avenue of Honour at Ballarat, where it is listed as U. glabra 'Purpurascens'. The tree is not known to have been introduced to North America.