Information AboutHuntingdon Elm |
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The glossy, oval leaves are <12cm long by <7.5cm broad contracting at the apex to a sharp point, on smooth branchlets that never feature corky wings. The tightly-clustered flowers are bright red, and appear in early spring. The samaras are obovate, <25mm long. The tree suckers freely, and a comparatively high percentage of the seed is usually viable. The tree was widely cultivated in England owing to its rapid growth and attractive wide-spreading form, but its habit of forking sometimes led to splitting of the trunk and premature death, although a specimen at Magdalen College , Oxford , was for a time the largest elm known in Britain before it was blown down in 1911 . It measured 44m tall, its trunk at breast height 2.6m in diameter. The Huntingdon Elm is notable today for its moderate tolerance of Dutch elm disease, a moribund 70 year-old specimen on a farm near Portsmouth still survives (2006) despite first exhibiting signs of the disease in 2001 . REFERENCES
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