Cultivar 'Atropurpurea' | ||
Similar Ulmus 'Purpurea', Ulmus × hollandica 'Superba', Ulmus americana 'Columnaris' | ||
The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Atropurpurea' was raised from seed at the Späth nursery in Berlin, Germany, circa 1881 as Ulmus montana atropurpurea. At Kew it was renamed U. glabra 'Atropurpurea', but Späth used U. montana both for wych elm and for U. × hollandica hybrids, so his name does not necessarily imply a wych elm cultivar. 'Atropurpurea' was later classed as a cultivar by Boom [2] in Nederlandse Dendrologie 1: 157, 1959. Photographs of an U. glabra 'Atropurpurea' hedge at Wakehurst Place, England, though they show untypical 'coppice' leaves, appear to confirm that Späth's cultivar was synonymous with 'Purpurea', sometimes called U. × hollandica 'Purpurascens'.
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Description
Henry described Atropurpurea as having dark purple, folded leaves.
Pests and diseases
A specimen at the Ryston Hall [3], Norfolk, arboretum, obtained from the Späth nursery before 1914, was killed by the earlier strain of Dutch elm disease prevalent in the 1930s.
Cultivation
One specimen of U. montana atropurpurea was planted in 1896 at the Dominion Arboretum, Ottowa, Canada. Three supplied by the Späth nursery to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1902 as U. montana atropurpurea may survive in Edinburgh as it was the practice of the Garden to distribute trees about the city (viz. the Wentworth Elm); the current list of Living Accessions held in the Garden per se does not list the plant. A specimen labelled U. glabra 'Atropurpurea' at Wakehurst Place, England, survives by being treated as a hedging plant, too low to attract the attentions of the Scolytus beetles that act as vectors of Dutch elm disease.
See also 'Purpurea'.
Synonymy
Accessions
See 'Purpurea'.