Hybrid parentage U. glabra × U. minor Origin France | Cultivar 'Dauvessei' | |
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The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Dauvessei' is a very rare cultivar said to have originated at the D. Dauvesse nursery in Orléans, France before 1877.
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Description
The branches ascend to form a broad, pyramidal crown; the leaves bear a vague resemblance to Wych Elm, but are generally smaller, rarely exceeding 10 cm long by 5 cm wide, thinner in texture, and with base more oblique.
Pests and diseases
The tree is susceptible to Dutch elm disease.
Cultivation
There are no confirmed surviving specimens of 'Dauvessei'. The tree was once grown at Kew Gardens where it attained a height of 40 feet (12 m) having been obtained from Lee at Hammersmith in 1879. In the United States putative specimens can be found along The Mall in Washington D.C. among American Elms on either side of the Reflecting Pool (2009); the tree grown at the Waite Arboretum in Australia died in 2002.
However, in the UK, a neat and broad pyramidal tree matching descriptions of 'Dauvessei', producing U. minor or hybrid-type samarae, stands in the east corner of Claremont Park, Leith, by Seafield Place. It has a strong central stem. The plantsmen left it room to spread, as if anticipating its broad-based. Its unusually neat shape suggests that it may be a named cultivar. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is known to have planted exotic elm cultivars across the city at the beginning of the 20th century; 'Dauvessei', however, does not appear in the RBGE's 1902 accessions list from the Späth nursery, the largest Edinburgh consignment of elm cultivars of that period.
Hybrid cultivars
'Dauvessei' was crossed with Ulmus × hollandica, U. glabra, and U. minor in the Dutch elm breeding programme before World War II, but none of the progeny were of particular note and were discarded.