| Ulmus americana 'Pendula' | |
| Species: | Ulmus americana |
| Cultivar: | 'Pendula' |
| Origin: | England |
The American elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Pendula' was originally listed by William Aiton in Hort. Kew, 1: 320, 1789, as U. americana var. pendula, cloned in England in 1752 by James Gordon.[1] [2] From the 1880s the Späth nursery of Berlin supplied a cultivar at first listed as Ulmus fulva (Michx.) pendula Hort.,[3] [4] which in their 1899 catalogue was queried as a possible variety of U. americana,[5] and which thereafter appeared in their early 20th-century catalogues as U. americana pendula (formerly Ulmus fulva (Michx.) pendula Hort.).[6] [7] [8] The Scampston Elm, Ulmus × hollandica 'Scampstoniensis', in cultivation on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th and 20th centuries, was occasionally referred to as 'American Weeping Elm' or Ulmus americana pendula.[9] [10] This cultivar, however, was distinguished by Späth from his Ulmus americana pendula.
'Pendula' was considered probably just a forma by Green, who stated that it was later confused with a pendulous variant of an Ulmus glabra (see 'Synonymy').[2] At least one US nursery, however, stocked a clone. From 1932 to 1934 Plumfield Nurseries of Fremont, Nebraska, marketed, alongside the pyramidal Ulmus americana 'Moline' and the non-pendulous Ulmus americana 'Vase', an 'American Weeping Elm', "a weeping form of American elm, with long drooping branches".[11] [12] [13]
The tree was described as vase-shaped with branches pendulous at their extremities.[2]
The U. americana pendula planted at the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, in 1889 may have been Späth's mis-named Ulmus fulva (Mchx) pendula, later corrected in arboretum lists, since Späth supplied many of the 1880s' and 1890s' elms there.[14] Specimens from Späth were in cultivation in Europe, as Ulmus fulva (Mchx) pendula in the late 19th century, and as U. americana pendula in the 20th, to the 1930s.[15] Henry (1913) described two at Kew obtained from Späth in 1896, considering them "probably not" Ulmus americana 'Beebe's Weeping', an 1889 cultivar which had at first also been mis-called Ulmus fulva (Mchx) pendula.[16] 'Pendula' is known to have been cultivated in the UK (most recently in Ayrshire[17]) and the Netherlands; no surviving trees have been confirmed (2016).
A striking low, horizontal-spreading American elm in Morton Arboretum, Illinois (near the main road to the east side), said by the Arboretum not to be 'Beebe's', is labelled as a forma, Ulmus americana f. pendula, reportedly cloned in 1970 from a weeping American elm growing in front of Plymouth Congregational Church, Plainfield, Illinois (see 'Accessions').
A clone cultivated in China as Ulmus americana 'Pendula', top-grafted on Ulmus pumila stock, is neither Ulmus americana nor Scampston elm (formerly mis-named Ulmus americana 'Pendula'), but, in the case of the majority of photographs on the Plant Photo Bank of China, a weeping form of U. glabra Huds., probably 'Camperdownii'.[18] [19]
'Pendula' was used in the Dutch elm breeding programme before World War II, but none of the progeny were of particular note and are not known to have been cultivated [20]