on a boundary bank or by a brook? Lastly, in hedgerows it may be worth noting the other tree
and shrub species found and it is also worthwhile recording the plants found beneath elms. I
commonly find Nettle, Bramble and Ivy but occasionally plants such as Ramsons and Yellow
Archangel.
Collecting Elm Material
It is essential that some material relating to the elm is collected and preserved. A flowering
shoot; samarae; mature leaves, collected from a short-shoot on a large branch growing in full
sunlight and from as high up the tree as possible and leaves from sucker shoots (if any) and
labelled as such. It is also useful to photograph the tree and to take a close up of its bark as well.
At least two visits and probably more would have to be made to a particular tree and it is essential
the same tree is visited on each occasion. A six-figure Ordnance Survey grid reference is needed
as well as a detailed site diagram to locate a particular elm.
R. H. Richens and Essex Elms
The late R. H. Richens published a particularly useful paper on the elms of Essex in 1967. In
this paper, one of a series of county studies of elms, he published the results of a biometrical
study of nearly 500 leaf samples collected from, where possible, the old closes around the centres
of each ancient parish in the county.
For the study he collected five sub-distal leaves from short-shoots on large branches and for
each he measured eight leaf characteristics reducing each measurement to a relative value on a
10-unit scale and noting also whether the leaves were scabrid or not. The characters he used
were:-
1) Lamina length (longest side)
2) Ratio of breadth/length
3) Ratio of petiole length/lamina length
4) Degree of basal asymmetry
5) Secondary tooth number
6) Length
7) Breadth of primary teeth
8) Depth
From the data he gathered, maps were prepared of the various biometrically related
individuals within a group. Richens also prepared a list of the various elm types, giving each
group a local name:-
a) U. carpinifolia (9 types)
Clacton
Chelmsford
Dengie
Epping
Manuden
Colchester
Layer
Chrishall
Newport
b) U. carpinifolia ? x
U. glabra (3 types)
Hallingbury
Ridgewell
Coggeshall
c) U. carpinifolia x
U. glabra (3 types)
Braintree
Boxted
Stebbing
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