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 (Southern Spain) where he also had a vineyard, and it is assumed that from there (or perhaps more directly) they were exported to Britain, either to train vines in Roman Britain, or as a source of leaf hay.

Roman vineyards were very different affairs from those of today. Pliny the elder, 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 ARBUSTA VITATA 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 (opulus), 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 are 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 fed on them first they refused to eat the leaves of the Italian Elm! He also mentions that the Atinian thrived much better and grew taller than the Italian. Thus it seems likely that in exporting vine-training elms to Iberia and ultimately Britain ?, he only used the one type of elm. He probably also found it easier to propagate as it suckers much faster than other minor elms. Its possible that it was only introduced to Britain as a source of leaf hay for Roman stock animals and not as a vine support. There does not seem to be any documentary evidence for either use.

When the enclosures came to England, however, this readily available rootstock was used to plant up many miles of hedges in Essex and other southern counties. Although producing copious pollen, the seeds rarely set, so it has been isolated genetically from other minor elms as a result of purely vegetative propagation, hence its universal susceptibility to Dutch Elm disease.

Coleman has also shown, using DNA finger printing, that several of our more obvious U. minor segregates, including `stricta' the Cornish Elm, `sarniensis' the Jersey Elm and `plotii' Plot's Elm/Lock Elm, are also separate genetically uniform clones that can only have spread in such large pure patches as a result of propagation by man. In common with U. procera, `plotii' has scabrid leaves. It also has a twisted grain to the wood that locks up saw blades - hence its alternative name. The other main segregates, `carpinifolia' Smooth-leaved Elm, `diversifolia' East Anglian Elm, `coritana' Coritanian Elm and `angustifolia' Goodyer's Elm have not yet been investigated.

Unfortunately nobody seems to have been brave enough to sort out U. minor variation on the European continent, so we don't yet know whether man brought over a series of elm suckers selected from a continuous range of variation within the continental population, or whether on the continent local clones form relatively pure populations, either naturally, or again as a result of man's intervention. Even the second edition of Vol: 1 Flora Europaea chickens out on the minor elms and lumps them all together.

I am grateful to David Bloomfield for pointing out the Spanish paper on the Atinian Elm that started off this investigation.

Coleman, M. (2002) British Wildlife 13. 390.

Columella,J.M.(c.AD50) De re Rustica, v.6. quoted from L. Junius Moderatus Columella Of Husbandry. London. 1745. 226 f.

Gil, L et al, (2004) English Elm is a 2,000-year-old Roman Clone. Nature 431. 1053.

Pliny (the elder), (c.AD70) Natural History. XVII.35. from the Bostock & Riley translation (London 1885, vol:III. p.512).