Red glands and spiny hairs on English/Atinian Elm and the documented
history of the tree
Ken Adams 63 Wroths Path, Baldwins Hill, Loughton, Essex IG10 1SH
In his paper on the Elm complex in Britain, Max Coleman (2002) mentions that the Ulmus
minor elms, and their hybrids, bear minute red glands on the underside of the leaves, and
that these are absent in U. glabra. He docs not however mention whether or not they occur
on the English Elm U. procera. Well they do, and in vast numbers. Although minute (40-60
u.m in length) they can be observed in a good light in the field with a x20 lens, when they
appear a deep ruby red. Under the microscope, they appear pale red in reflected and orange
in (tungsten) transmitted light. These glands consist of a basal cell, a stalk cell, both transparent,
and a pair of spherical to ovoid gland-apex cells with deep ruby red contents, all in a line.
In a remarkable series of papers worthy of a detective novel, our so called English Elm has
been tracked back to a clone of sterile suckering elms growing in Italy, in the province of
Latium, the area around Rome, from whence a Roman by the name of Lucius Junius
Moderadus Columella propagated them as root suckers to provide trees up which to grow
his vines in C.AD50. He introduced the clone (known locally as the Atinian Elm), and the
practice, to Andalusia (N. Spain) where he also had a vineyard, and it is assumed that from
there (or perhaps more directly) they were exported to Britain to train vines in Roman Britain.
Roman vineyards were very different affairs from those of today. Pliny, a contemporary of
Columella, describes how the vines were actually trained to grow up young growing and
finally full-grown trees, the best grapes coming from the tops of the trees (up to 15m high,
the vines living for up to 80yrs). Pliny describes the procedure. The young elms were allowed
to grow for 3yrs and then all the branches were removed on one side, then the next year they
were removed from the other side, and so on each year, until the 6th year when the vine was
united with the tree. The vines would begin to fruit when 3yrs old. The technique was known
to the Etruscans as early as 900BC, and was passed on to the Romans. The Atinian Elm
(presumably derived from a clone at Atina a few hundred kms east of Rome) was not as
good as the local 'Italian' elm for the purpose as it had too many leaves which occluded the
light. However the ARBUSTUM VITATUM as the elm/vine enclosures or 'vine-covered
groves' were known, were also used to produce fodder for livestock, and the Atinian Elm
produced a greater abundance of leaves, and so it was usually planted alternately along the
rows with the Italian Elm, both trees having vines trained up them. Presumably, the Romans
climbed up to the tops of the trees to pick the grapes, and chopped off leafy branches as
fodder for their animals. In other parts of Italy a variety of trees were used for vine bearing,
next in favour being the Black Poplar, but willows were used in wet areas, and ash in rough,
rugged, mountainous places. Maple, oak, and lime were also used in some areas. The trees
were planted in rows, and the bases of the vines fenced off from the cattle, goats and sheep.
Frustratingly, we arc not given a clue as to the taxonomy of their so-called 'Italian Elm'.
Columella preferred to use only Atinian elms, as the leaves were preferred by the oxen, and if
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 46, January 2005