Friday, 6 May 2016

SLIPPERY ELM

SLIPPERY ELM
red elm
Ulmus rubra Muhlenberg
Slippery elm is a medium-sized forest tree of stream banks and low fertile slopes and is common south of the Adirondacks. The wood is hard, heavy, strong, coarse-grained, and fairly durable in contact with the soil. This tree is not an important commercial species but is used for fence posts, ties, barrel staves and hoops.
Bark - grayish brown in color, more or less deeply furrowed, the ridges tending to lift more along one edge than in the American elmlayers of outer bark reddish brown in color, shows no alternate layers of brown and white as in the American elm; inner bark, next to the wood, whitish, strongly mucilaginous (like glue), giving the name "slippery elm."
Twigs - light gray in color, hairy, somewhat rough, characteristically mucilaginous when chewed.
Winter buds - terminal bud absent as in American elm; lateral buds 1/4 inch long, dark chestnut brown in color, covered at tip with long, rusty hairs.
Leaves - alternate, simple, oval, 5 to 7 inches long, oblique at the base, margin doubly serrate; at maturity thick, dark green in color above, decidedly rough to the touch, paler and white-hairy below; midrib and parallel veins prominent.
Fruit - flat-winged, but not notched at the end, 1/2 to 3/4 inch long, containing one seed; in clusters, maturing in late May or early June when the leaves are about half grown, falling soon thereafter.
Distinguishing features - inner bark chewy, without alternate layers of brown and white; leaf base oblique, rough above and below; twigs chewy; buds tipped with rusty hairs.

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