''Ulmus'' × ''hollandica'' 'Fastigiata'

Ulmus × hollandica 'Fastigiata'
Ulmus glabra fastigiata, Zirlau, Silesia (1915)
Hybrid parentage	U. glabra × U. minor
Cultivar	'Fastigiata'
Origin	Germany

The putative hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Fastigiata' was listed and described as Ulmus glabra fastigiata in Graf von Schwerin's Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft (1915) by C. Berndt of the Berndt Nursery, Zirlau, Schweidnitz, who had received it in 1903 "from a renowned nursery in Holstein" as Ulmus montana fastigiata macrophylla, probably the Ulmus montana forma fastigiata macrophylla first mentioned by Dieck in 1885, without description.^[1] Berndt reported that U. glabra fastigiata was "easy to confuse with U. montana superba", a tree "known in the Magdeburg region as Ulmus praestans", which suggests that, like that cultivar, it may have been a form of U. × hollandica.^[2] An U. campestris glabra fastigiata Arb. Musc. was distributed by the Hesse Nursery, Weener, Germany, in the 1930s.^[3]

Berndt's U. glabra fastigiata is possibly synonymous with Bean's U. glabra 'Fastigiata Stricta' (1925).^[4]

Not to be confused with the U. montana fastigiata glabra distributed by the Späth nursery, Berlin, in the 1890s and early 1900s,^[5] or with Exeter Elm – Loudon's U. montana fastigiata (1838)^[6] and Elwes and Henry's U. montana var. fastigiata (1913).^[7]

Description

A tree of tight narrow pyramidal growth, the leaf being dark, acuminate, irregularly veined, and often wider at the top than lower down. Berndt reported the tree as "less vigorous than Ulmus montana superba".^[2]

Pests and diseases

Unknown.

Cultivation

Ulmus glabra fastigiata was cultivated in Silesia by the Berndt Nursery, Zirlau, Schweidnitz, in the early 20th century. Berndt reported that, though stocked in only a few nurseries, it was praised at the 20th Century Exhibition in Breslau. No specimens are known to survive.

References