| Ulmus × hollandica | |
|---|---|
'Vegeta', Groningen. Photo: Ronnie Nijboer, Bonte Hoek kwekerijen |
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| Details | |
| Hybrid parentage | U. glabra × U. minor |
| Cultivar | 'Vegeta' |
| Origin | England |
Ulmus × hollandica Mill. 'Vegeta' Lindley , sometimes known as the Huntingdon Elm, is an old English 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.[1] 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.
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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 [2][3] which serve to distinguish the tree from that other popular × hollandica cultivar 'Major', yclept 'Dutch Elm', whose bark breaks into small shallow flakes.[4] The glossy, oval leaves have petioles >10 mm long, which serve to 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 leaves are borne on smooth branchlets that never feature corky wings.[5] The tightly-clustered apetalous flowers are bright red, and appear in early spring. The samarae are obovate, < 25 mm long.
Elwes & Henry [1] and Bean [6] attested that the Huntingdon Elm suckers freely, but other writers have stated that it does not sucker at all.[3][7] 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.[6]
The tree has only a slight resistance to Dutch elm disease.
The tree was widely planted in England, particularly between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1930s,[4] 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. A reputed Huntingdon Elm at Magdalen College, Oxford, was for a time the largest elm known in Britain before it was blown down in 1911. It measured 44 m tall, its trunk at breast height 2.6 m in diameter.[1] However, its calculated age would place its planting long before the introduction of the Huntingdon Elm, and the tree in question was more likely a Chichester Elm.
'Vegeta' was planted in large numbers across Amsterdam after the Second World War as a replacement for 'Belgica' (Belgian Elm), and was itself eventually replaced by the Dutch cultivar 'Dodoens' [5]. 'Vegeta' is also known to have been introduced to Eastern Europe during the 19th century; it was marketed (as U. montana vegeta) in Poland by the Ulrich nursery,[8] Warsaw, and survives in several arboreta.
Introduced to Australasia, the tree was marketed by several Australian nurseries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In London, there are many surviving trees around the Millfields, Hackney, two in Gibson Square, Islington, and one in Westminster known as The Marylebone Elm.[9] Some very old examples survive on the university campuses at Cambridge; others can be found (2009) in Clifton (Bristol). 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. Scotland has several of note, with fine specimens surviving in Edinburgh in Inverleith Park, at Fettes College, and in Abercromby Place. In Éire, it is represented by a tree at the Kildangan Stud, Kildangan. Several dozen planted in the 1920s survive on Southsea Common in Portsmouth, isolated from disease by the sea and urban sprawl.
Notable plantings in Australia include the Avenue of Honour in Ballarat, and Brisbane Avenue, Canberra.[10] 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 (now only five) planted in 1922 around the rotunda at Auckland Zoo were described as "magnificent... with stately crowns and spreading, drooping branches".[11]
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 weeping elm once grown at Kew as 'Wentworth Pendula' was identified by Melville as U. × vegeta. 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.[12] F1 hybrids between Wych and Field Elm (e.g. Huntingdon Elm) are fully fertile, but produce widely variant progeny.[13]
Henry Elwes noted in Hertfordshire, and along the western borders of Essex, 'the most graceful form of this tree may be seen in perfection', however he identified it as Ulmus nitens (:Ulmus minor subsp. minor). Only DNA analysis may ultimately reveal determine the trees' identities.