SCOTCH ELM
Ulmus montana
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Scotch, Dutch, or Wych Elm Ulmus montana
A medium-sized tree, 50 to 60 feet high. The bark is smooth and green. The branches are spreading and somewhat drooping. The buds are not downy like those of the slippery elm.
The Scotch elm, like the English elm, is extensively cultivated in the parks and gardens about Boston, and it is frequently planted along roadsides. It is less upright and tall than the English elm, its average height being about forty feet, and it has a more spreading head.
The Scotch elm, according to Gerard, had various uses in ancient times. Its wood was made into bows, and its bark, which is so tough that it will strip or peel off from the wood from one end of a bough to the other without breaking, was made into ropes. Its wood was not considered so good for naves as that of the English elm, though in Scotland it is used by ship-builders, the block and pump maker, the cartwright and cabinet maker. Loudon says in his “Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum”: “In many parts of the country, the wych elm, or witch-hazel, as it is still occasionally called, is considered a preservative against witches; probably from the coincidence, between the words ‘wych’ and ‘witch.’ In some of the midland counties, even to the present day, a little cavity is made in the churn to receive a small portion of witch-hazel, without which the dairymaids imagine that they would not be able to get the butter to come.”
The specific name, montana, from the Latin word meaning living on mountains, was given to this tree because it is found growing, not only in the plains and valleys, like Ulmus campestris, but also in the remote highlands where it finds a foothold and flourishes on the steep slopes of the mountains.
Hackberry, Sugarberry, Nettle Tree Celtis occidentalis
A small tree, 20 to 50 feet high, with slender, wide-spreading branches. The terminal buds are lacking, the lateral ones are flattened and pointed and somewhat hairy. The twigs are dark grayish brown with white chambered pith inside the stems. The leaf-scars are semi-oval with three bundle-scars and alternate in arrangement. The fruit is reddish, turning dark purple; it is round and berry-like and about the size of a currant.