Distribution. River-bottom lands, intervales, low rich hills, and the banks of streams; southern Newfoundland to the northern shores of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Saskatchewan, southward to the neighborhood of Lake Istokpoga, De Soto County, Florida, westward in the United States to the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, the Black Hills of South Dakota, western Nebraska, central Kansas and Oklahoma, and the valley of the upper Colorado River (Fort Chadbourne, Coke County), Texas; very common northward, less abundant and of smaller size southward; abundant on the banks of streams flowing through the midcontinental plateau.
Largely planted as an ornamental and shade tree in the northern states, and rarely in western and northern Europe.
2. [Ulmus racemosa] Thomas. Rock Elm. Cork Elm.
Ulmus Thomasii Sarg.
Leaves obovate to oblong-oval, rather abruptly narrowed at apex into a short broad point, equally or somewhat unequally rounded, cuneate or subcordate at base, and coarsely doubly serrate, when they unfold pilose on the upper surface and covered on the lower with soft white hairs, at maturity 2′—2½′ long, ¾′—1′ wide, thick and firm, smooth, dark green and lustrous above, paler and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout midrib and the numerous straight veins running to the point of the teeth and connected by obscure cross veinlets; turning in the autumn bright clear yellow; petioles pubescent, about ¼′ in length; stipules ovate-lanceolate, conspicuously veined, light green, marked with dark red on the margins above the middle, ⅔′ long, clasping the stem by their abruptly enlarged cordate base conspicuously dentate with 1—3 prominent teeth on each side, falling when the leaves are half grown. Flowers on elongated slender drooping pedicels often ½′ long, in 2—4, usually in 3-flowered, puberulous cymes becoming more or less racemose by the lengthening of the axis of the inflorescence, and when fully grown sometimes 2′ in length; calyx green, divided nearly to the middle into 7 or 8 rounded dark red scarious lobes; anthers dark purple; ovary coated with long pale hairs most abundant on the margins; styles light green. Fruit ripening when the leaves are about half grown, ovoid or obovoid-oblong, ½′ long, with a shallow open notch at the apex, obscurely veined, pale pubescent, ciliate on the slightly thickened border of the broad wing, the margin of the seminal cavity scarcely thickened.
A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter, and often free of branches for 60°, short stout spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender rigid branchlets, light brown when they first appear, and coated with soft pale pubescence often persistent until their second season, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous or glabrous and lustrous in their first winter, and marked by scattered oblong lenticels and large orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying an irregular row of 4—6 fibro-vascular bundle-scars, ultimately dark brown or ashy gray, and usually furnished with 3 or 4 thick corky irregular wings often ½′ broad, and beginning to appear in their first or more often during their second year. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ¼′ long, with broadly ovate rounded chestnut-brown scales pilose on the outer surface, ciliate on the margins, the inner scales becoming ovate-oblong to lanceolate, and ½′ long, often dentate at the base, with 1 or 2 minute teeth on each side, bright green below the middle, marked with a red blotch above, and white and scarious at the apex. Bark ¾′—1′ thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply divided by wide irregular interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into large irregularly shaped scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong and tough, close-grained, light clear brown often tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely employed in the manufacture of many agricultural implements, for the framework of chairs, hubs of wheels, railway-ties, the sills of buildings, and other purposes demanding toughness, solidity and flexibility.
Distribution. Dry gravelly uplands, low heavy clay soils, rocky slopes and river cliffs; Province of Quebec westward through Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan and central Wisconsin to northeastern Nebraska, western Missouri and eastern Kansas, and southward to northern New Hampshire, southern Vermont, western New York, (valley of the Genesee River), northern New Jersey, southern Ohio (near Columbus, Franklin County), and central Indiana; rare in the east and toward the extreme western and southern limits of its range.
Occasionally planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the northern states.