78 ABNORMAL FRUITING OF THE COMMON ELM.
have belonged to Ulmus glabra.10 Again, around Terling Place,
a form of elm, which "appears to be U. glabra, with a certain
leaning towards U. campestris," is said11 to produce commonly
seeds which are fertile and germinate readily. This was
especially the case in 1907, when Lady Rayleigh sent specimen
seedlings to Kew. This led to an investigation by the
authorities there, and one of the seedlings was figured and
described, together with a twig of a seedling elm (regarded as
Ulmus campestris) found growing in crevices of the stone-work of
the gateway leading to the "Backs" of King's College, Cam-
bridge.12 Further, my cousin, Miss Richenda Christy, late of
Stanford Rivers Hall, near Ongar, tells me that they used
often to find seedling elms springing up in the garden there,
which contains many large elms; and my aunt, Mrs. Marriage,
of Coval Hall, Chelmsford (which is quite surrounded by large
elm trees), has also often seen seedlings springing up there,
though never to anything like the extent observed this year.
It is noticeable that all the foregoing instances of the elm
having been observed to produce seedlings in Essex previous to
the present year have one feature in common—they all occurred
either in gardens or in the immediate vicinity of houses. It may
be that the elms growing in such situations are not our Common
Field Elm (U. ? campestris), but either U. glabra or some other
habitually-fertile species, which has been planted there because
more ornamental than the common kind. Or, possibly, the
presence in such situations of carefully-cultivated ground is more
favourable to the germination of the seeds of the elm than
ordinary agricultural land, most of which is covered by growing
crops at the time the ripe "seed" falls. However this may be,
it is certain that, in Essex fields, the seeds of the Common Elm
produce seedlings only on the rarest occasions.
I first had my attention called to the abundant germination
of the seeds of the elm this year by Miss Juliet Rosling, of
Melbourne, Writtle, who, on the 4th September, showed me
many seedlings springing up in flower-beds near some large elms
growing in the garden there. These seedlings had every appear-
ance of being young elms; and that they really were such seems
10 See also Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc., xxxiv., p. xxxiii. (1909).
11 Kew Bulletin, 1907, pp. 404-408.
12 Op. cit., 1907, pp. 406 and 407.