Elm ID please

I know elms are rather difficult to ID but I thought maybe some of you folks in the UK might be familiar with this lil bugger. For the longest time I've thought it was American Elm (U. americana) but now having doubts. My current thinkig is it may be one of the English Elms (U. glabra or U. procera) but I'm not all that up on them. I'm sure someone in this forum from the UK has seen natives elms and maybe you could either confirm or eliminate the suspects. Thanks in advance for your interest.

Randy

Bark and leaves from last year


Expanding leaves from today

Hello Randy,

Here is a link to the vegetative key for Ulmus in the Flora of North America:
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=134116&key_no=2 . Because both U. procera and U. glabra have become naturalized here they are included. With a leaf in hand you should be able to run it through the key, but given that many of the distinguishing characteristics are type and degree of leaf pubescence it is very difficult to key out from a photograph.

I hope this is helpful,
David B.

Cowabunga! The taxonomists' flow chart for North America (and Missouri!!!). Who would have thought...

Thanks, David.

It's not Glabra. Leaves are generally a lot bigger and the twigs are a lot thicker. Procera or minor as it is known now, would be my bet.

could be a slippery elm, the bark of those is a "silvery" gray similar to yours. they are found all over, especially the south. I've had a few, they do well, but leaves stay a little big.

NeilDellinger wrote:could be a slippery elm, the bark of those is a "silvery" gray similar to yours. they are found all over, especially the south. I've had a few, they do well, but leaves stay a little big.

Neil and Will,

Nope, It's definitely not slipery elm (U.rubra) as I have some of those and they do, as you say grow all over the mid-west and southern US. This particular plant was collected in California as a root, left over from a site that was cleared in the south SF bay area and most of the Eastern Elms aren't planted there much except the American elm. Now that I've done a closer look at it, it does satisfy all the criteria for Will's U. minor with the exception of wings on the stems of the smaller branches. It could be that the wings don't develop on containerized plants as much as those grown in the ground but I'm really leaning towards Will's suggestion at the moment. I may just take a cutting of the bugger and plant it in the ground so I can once and for all solve the mystery!

The mystery goes on,
Randy

Thanks for the flowchart. I was able to identify three different varieties of elm in my yard; glabra, pumila, americana.

From what I read in this thread, glabra leaves dont reduce well. Other than that any problems? This one would have to be layered as the base is under an Oak that fell a couple years ago.

How about the pumila?

According to Brent at Evergreen, american is the finest variety for Bonsai. If the one I collected earlier this year is american (it was under the american tree and its sibling), it will make a nice mame which I was aiming for anyway.