White elm and wych elm flowering
Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
White elm flowering
White elm Künnapuu Ulmus laevis
Wych elm; elm Jalakas Ulmus glabra
Trees best known to city people, used in parks for landscaping. As seen by the Latin names, relatives, and flower before coming into leaf. The trees have large, mighty and beautiful crowns.
The white elm has flowers in bunches, pretty colourful flowers worth notice in the city. Wych elm flowers are brownish and more modest. How else to distinguish bewteen them in spring? The shoots of the white elm, if you reach up to them, are smooth and shiny, the shoots of the wych elm hairy.
A couple of thousand years ago we had a warmer climate that suited the white elm and wych elm. Their valuable properties as timber and the cooler weather have hindered their spread in nature. With the global warming in climate that is the current trend in the world maybe some centuries onwards we will again see white elm and wych elm forests growing?
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