Notable elm trees Many elm trees of various kinds have attained great size or otherwise become particularly noteworthy.
In art Many artists have admired elms for the ease and grace of their branching and foliage, and have painted them with sensitivity. Elms are a recurring element in the landscapes and studies of, for example,
John Constable,
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller,
Alfred East,
George Clausen,
Frederick Childe Hassam,
Karel Klinkenberg, and
George Inness. File:Constable - Elm trees in Old Hall Park, East Bergholt, 320-1891.jpg|John Constable,
Elm trees in Old Hall Park, East Bergholt [1817] (
Ulmus × hollandica File:Glaspalast München 1890 165.jpg|Johannes Karel Christiaan Klinkenberg,
Amsterdam [1890] (
Ulmus x hollandica ‘Belgica'
) File:Childe Hassam - Champs Elysées, Paris.JPG|Frederick Childe Hassam,
Champs Elysées, Paris [1889] (
Ulmus × hollandica, 'orme femelle' File:Church at Old Lyme Childe Hassam.jpeg|Frederick Childe Hassam,
Church at Old Lyme [1905] (
U. americana) File:Childe Hassam's 1920 oil, The East Hampton Elms in May.jpg|Frederick Childe Hassam,
The East Hampton Elms in May [1920] (
U. americana) File:GeorgeInnessOldElmAtMedfield.jpg|George Inness,
Old Elm at Medfield (
U. americana) File:PSM V65 D491 The cam near trinity college cambridge university.png|Unknown artist,
The Cam near Trinity College, Cambridge, England (
U. atinia)
In mythology and literature In Greek mythology, the nymph Ptelea (Πτελέα, Elm) was one of the eight
hamadryads, nymphs of the forest and daughters of Oxylos and Hamadryas. In his
Hymn to Artemis, poet
Callimachus (third century BC) tells how, at the age of three, the infant goddess
Artemis practised her newly acquired silver bow and arrows, made for her by
Hephaestus and the
Cyclopes, by shooting first at an elm, then at an oak, before turning her aim on a wild animal: :πρῶτον ἐπὶ πτελέην, τὸ δὲ δεύτερον ἧκας ἐπὶ δρῦν, τὸ τρίτον αὖτ᾽ ἐπὶ θῆρα. The first reference in literature to elms occurs in the
Iliad. When
Eetion, father of
Andromache, is killed by
Achilles during the
Trojan War, the
mountain nymphs plant elms on his tomb ("περί δὲ πτελέας ἐφύτευσαν νύμφαι ὀρεστιάδες, κoῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχoιo"). Also in the
Iliad, when the River
Scamander, indignant at the sight of so many corpses in his water, overflows and threatens to drown Achilles, the latter grasps a branch of a great elm in an attempt to save himself ("ὁ δὲ πτελέην ἕλε χερσὶν εὐφυέα μεγάλην"). The nymphs also planted elms on the tomb in the
Thracian Chersonese of "great-hearted
Protesilaus" ("μεγάθυμου Πρωτεσιλάου"), the first Greek to fall in the Trojan War. These elms grew to be the tallest in the known world, but when their topmost branches saw far off the ruins of Troy, they immediately withered, so great still was the bitterness of the hero buried below, who had been loved by
Laodamia and slain by
Hector. The story is the subject of a poem by
Antiphilus of Byzantium (first century AD) in the
Palatine Anthology: :Θεσσαλὲ Πρωτεσίλαε, σὲ μὲν πολὺς ᾄσεται αἰών, :Tρoίᾳ ὀφειλoμένoυ πτώματος ἀρξάμενoν• :σᾶμα δὲ τοι πτελέῃσι συνηρεφὲς ἀμφικoμεῦση :Nύμφαι, ἀπεχθoμένης Ἰλίoυ ἀντιπέρας. :Δένδρα δὲ δυσμήνιτα, καὶ ἤν ποτε τεῖχoς ἴδωσι :Tρώϊον, αὐαλέην φυλλοχoεῦντι κόμην. :ὅσσoς ἐν ἡρώεσσι τότ᾽ ἦν χόλoς, oὗ μέρoς ἀκμὴν :ἐχθρὸν ἐν ἀψύχoις σώζεται ἀκρέμoσιν. :[:Thessalian Protesilaos, a long age shall sing your praises, :Of the destined dead at Troy the first; :Your tomb with thick-foliaged elms they covered, :The nymphs, across the water from hated Ilion. :Trees full of anger; and whenever that wall they see, :Of Troy, the leaves in their upper crown wither and fall. :So great in the heroes was the bitterness then, some of which still :Remembers, hostile, in the soulless upper branches.] Protesilaus had been king of
Pteleos () in Thessaly, which took its name from the abundant elms () in the region. Elms occur often in
pastoral poetry, where they symbolise the idyllic life, their shade being mentioned as a place of special coolness and peace. In the first Idyll of
Theocritus (third century BC), for example, the goatherd invites the shepherd to sit "here beneath the elm" ("δεῦρ' ὑπὸ τὰν πτελέαν") and sing. Beside elms, Theocritus places "the
sacred water" ("") of the Springs of the Nymphs and the shrines to the nymphs. Aside from references literal and metaphorical to the
elm and vine theme, the tree occurs in Latin literature in the Elm of Dreams in the
Aeneid. When the
Sibyl of Cumae leads
Aeneas down to the
Underworld, one of the sights is the Stygian Elm: :In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit :ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem somnia vulgo :uana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent. :[:Spreads in the midst her boughs and agéd arms :an elm, huge, shadowy, where vain dreams, 'tis said, :are wont to roost them, under every leaf close-clinging.]
Virgil refers to a Roman superstition (
vulgo) that elms were trees of ill-omen because their fruit seemed to be of no value. It has been noted that two elm-motifs have arisen from classical literature: (1) the 'Paradisal Elm' motif, arising from pastoral idylls and the elm-and-vine theme, and (2) the 'Elm and Death' motif, perhaps arising from Homer's commemorative elms and Virgil's Stygian Elm. Many references to elm in European literature from the Renaissance onwards fit into one or other of these categories. There are two examples of
pteleogenesis (:birth from elms) in world myths. In Germanic and Scandinavian mythology the first woman,
Embla, was fashioned from an elm, while in Japanese mythology
Kamuy Fuchi, the chief goddess of the
Ainu people, "was born from an elm impregnated by the Possessor of the Heavens". , 2006 The elm occurs frequently in English literature, one of the best known instances being in Shakespeare's ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream'', where Titania, Queen of the Fairies, addresses her beloved Nick Bottom using an elm-simile. Here, as often in the elm-and-vine motif, the elm is a masculine symbol: :Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. :... the female Ivy so :Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm. :O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! Another of the most famous kisses in English literature, that of Paul and Helen at the start of Forster's
Howards End, is stolen beneath a great wych elm. The elm tree is also referenced in children's literature.
An Elm Tree and Three Sisters by
Norma Sommerdorf is a children's book about three young sisters who plant a small elm tree in their backyard.
In politics The
cutting of the elm was a diplomatic altercation between the kings of France and England in 1188, during which an elm tree near Gisors in Normandy was felled. In politics, the elm is associated with revolutions. In England after the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, the final victory of parliamentarians over monarchists, and the arrival from Holland, with
William III and
Mary II, of the
Dutch elm hybrid, planting of this cultivar became a fashion among enthusiasts of the new political order. In the
American Revolution, the
Liberty Tree was an American white elm in
Boston, Massachusetts, in front of which, from 1765, the first resistance meetings were held against British attempts to tax the American colonists without democratic representation. When the British, knowing that the tree was a symbol of rebellion, felled it in 1775, the Americans took to widespread Liberty Elm planting, and sewed elm symbols on to their revolutionary flags. Elm planting by American Presidents later became something of a tradition. In the
French Revolution, too,
Les arbres de la liberté (Liberty Trees), often elms, were planted as symbols of revolutionary hopes, the first in
Vienne, Isère, in 1790, by a priest inspired by the Boston elm. By contrast, a famous Parisian elm associated with the
Ancien Régime, ''L'Orme de Saint-Gervais
in the Place St-Gervais, was felled'' by the revolutionaries; church authorities planted a new elm in its place in 1846, and an early 20th-century elm stands on the site today. Premier
Lionel Jospin, obliged by tradition to plant a tree in the garden of the
Hôtel Matignon, the official residence and workplace of Prime Ministers of France, insisted on planting an elm, so-called 'tree of the Left', choosing the new disease-resistant hybrid 'Clone 762' (
Ulmus 'Wanoux' =). In the
French Republican Calendar, in use from 1792 to 1806, the 12th day of the month
Ventôse (= 2 March) was officially named "jour de l'Orme", Day of the Elm. Liberty Elms were also planted in other countries in Europe to celebrate their revolutions, an example being ''L'Olmo di Montepaone, L'Albero della Libertà'' (:the Elm of Montepaone, Liberty Tree) in
Montepaone,
Calabria, planted in 1799 to commemorate the founding of the democratic
Parthenopean Republic, and surviving until it was brought down by a recent storm (it has since been cloned and 'replanted'). After the
Greek Revolution of 1821–32, a thousand young elms were brought to Athens from
Missolonghi, "Sacred City of the Struggle" against the Turks and scene of
Lord Byron's death, and planted in 1839–40 in the National Garden. In an ironic development, feral elms have spread and invaded the grounds of the abandoned Greek royal summer palace at
Tatoi in
Attica. In a chance event linking elms and revolution, on the morning of his execution (30 January 1649), walking to the scaffold at the
Palace of Whitehall,
King Charles I turned to his guards and pointed out, with evident emotion, an elm near the entrance to
Spring Gardens that had been planted by his
brother in happier days. The tree was said to be still standing in the 1860s. File:LibertyTreePlanting.jpg|Planting a Liberty Tree (
un arbre de la liberté) during the
French Revolution.
Jean-Baptiste Lesueur, 1790 File:Balcony St-Gervais.jpg|Balcony with elm symbol, overlooking the
'Crossroads of the Elm', Place Saint-Gervais, Paris The London area of
Nine Elms was also named for a line of elm trees along the road from
The Strand to
Vauxhall. ==See also==