Just as the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 did not originate in Spain, so Dutch elm disease is no fault of the Netherlands. It acquired the name thanks to the pioneering efforts of three Dutch scientists \u2013 Marie Beatrice Schol-Schwarz, Christine Buisman and Johanna Westerdijk \u2013 who identified the beetle-transported fungus that causes it in the 1920s.<\/p>\n
Nor is the so-called \u201cEnglish elm\u201d\u00a0(Ulmus minor) really English, inasmuch as it is thought to have been transferred here from Italy, so Reform UK party enthusiasts should probably agitate to repatriate all such specimens. More confidently thought native to these isles is the wych elm (from the Old English for \u201csupple\u201d) or\u00a0Scots elm, which has long been thought to have healing and protective qualities.<\/p>\n
Our scholarly guide to this noble plant, Mandy Haggith, delves enthusiastically into such lore. The 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper said that elm was connected to the planet Saturn and that its leaves could fix broken bones. Modern \u201chealers\u201d promise that drinking a decoction of elm bark can purge phlegm and stop diarrhoea. Haggith cites a\u00a0present-day \u201cMassachusetts-based herbalist and druid\u201d who claims that slippery elm milk is good for insomnia.<\/p>\n
It would be unkind to call this sort of thing merely barking. The author insists that \u201ca western scientific worldview\u201d (in other words, a scientific worldview, shared by scientists in China and India) \u201cis absolutely not the only way forests can be thought about\u201d, which is fair enough. But the fake cures of the \u201cwellness\u201d industry are not without their own ecological downsides: as Haggith writes later, fashionable pseudo-remedies gone viral on TikTok or whatever can inspire the stripping of bark from healthy trees at injurious scale.<\/p>\n
Happily, elmwood was not only the\u00a0preserve of quacks; it was also a\u00a0sought-after material in shipbuilding (most of the hull of the fast clipper Cutty Sark was made of rock elm), and\u00a0long before that for making spears and bows: an iron age Celtic tribe was known as \u201cthe ones who vanquish by\u00a0the elm\u201d (Lemovices). Medieval London, Bristol and other cities had running water delivered by mains pipes of elm. And elm is also the source of a famous insult: when the great Samuel Johnson claimed that there was no Gaelic literature, a poet responded with the Gaelic for \u201cyour head is made entirely of elm, especially your tongue and your gums\u201d.<\/p>\n
Luckily, although Dutch elm disease has killed hundreds of millions of trees since the early 20th century, the species is not lost, or even on the brink of extinction. Brighton, Haggith sees, is managing the blight well through city-wide surveillance and timely surgery. And the fossil record suggests that elms have previously suffered waves of pandemic disease before bouncing back. There will be time for more poetic mentions of elms of the kind the author rather exhaustively collects towards the end. (\u201cRobert Frost was a big fan of elm trees \u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n
But the greater part of this book\u2019s devotion, and its delight, is reserved for living specimens in their habitats. Two rows of elms, Haggith notes, can form a \u201ccorridor for wildlife, dog walkers and feral children\u201d, or \u201ca\u00a0church-like nave, an arch-shaped cloister that draws the eye\u201d towards a\u00a0monastery in Beauly. A cheerfully self-described \u201ctree-hugger\u201d, she is inspired to her best writing by close observation of the trees themselves. On an elm growing horizontally out of the rock near a Scottish loch: \u201cI stand beneath it, neck craned in awe, looking up into the lush green profusion of its living community. It is winter, so all this greenery isn\u2019t the tree\u2019s own leaves, but photosynthesising life using it as a climbing frame\u201d. Elsewhere she finds beauty even in a diseased log, happily noting the \u201cbeautiful doily pattern made by the brood-chamber and feeding passages of the grubs\u201d.<\/p>\n
And her enthusiasm is contagious. As someone who began this book with\u00a0literally no idea what an elm looks like, I was inspired to download the Woodland Trust tree-ID app<\/a> and resolve to pay more attention to our ligneous friends.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n