Another way (perhaps the best way) of telling whether an elm is Ulmus Thomasii or not

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plutonium.archimedes@gmail.com - 03 Jul 2008 22:50 GMT

Let me describe the problem first, so you can appreciate why I am
looking for a better way of telling apart
Rock Elm from other elm. A few years back I was lucky to find some
Rock Elm seeds, only that I was
not expert enough to definitely know whether the seeds were really
Rock Elm and not American elm or
Siberian elm. And in the seedling flat, some of the seeds got mixed up
where some American elm
were mixed with the few Rock Elm seeds. So then my problem became,
after the seedlings sprouted
and began growing into tree saplings is whether the sapling is truly a
Rock Elm or whether a American
Elm or Siberian Elm.

Well, after a sapling grows to a height, if it is Siberian is pretty
easy to tell since the leaves are
so much smaller than either Rock Elm or American Elm. The trouble is
distinguishing between
Rock Elm and American Elm.

So I think I have found a new way of distinguishing that maybe
superior to all the other ways.
It is the thickness of the leaf. Rock Elm leaves are at least 2X
thicker than the same size of
leaf of a American Elm. Rock Elm leaves feel like cardboard compared
to American Elm as the
thickness of paper.

So I think this test-- compare the leaf thickness is perhaps the
single best test.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

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plutonium.archimedes@gmail.com - 04 Jul 2008 07:09 GMT

plutonium.archime...@gmail.com wrote:

> Let me describe the problem first, so you can appreciate why I am
> looking for a better way of telling apart
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> So I think this test-- compare the leaf thickness is perhaps the
> single best test.

Now I am going to try a density weight test in the next several days.
Where I get
a Rock Elm leaf that is the same size as a American Elm leaf and weigh
the two.

What I hope to find is a sure fire way of telling the two species
apart.

I believe the weight density of Rock Elm is about 2X greater than
American Elm.

So that if in the future, I bump into a elm tree. And by simply
feeling the leaf, would
be able to say which of those elm it is.

Now going further, to generalize, I wonder if I hit on a key test to
differentiate two species
that are close together.

I have a tough time of telling the ashes apart, whether green-ash or
white-ash. So I wonder
if the density weight of leaves is a sure fire way.

My scale may not go down far enough for a leaf, so I may have to use a
relative weight scale of
balancing beam with one leaf on one end and the other the other end.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

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plutonium.archimedes@gmail.com - 09 Jul 2008 07:48 GMT

Nay, still having alot of trouble in immediately identifying Rock Elm
saplings from American Elm. I wish it
was as easy as Siberian elm where the small leaves are a sure give
away.

I recently found a Rock Elm whose leaves were "not dense and not
thick" and I found a
American Elm whose leaves were thick and dense and hard to tell apart
from Rock Elm. So I need something
better.

Perhaps it is the reddish pigment in the new leaves that can
distinguish Rock Elm. I notice that
my Rock Elm all have a reddish pigment in their newly formed leaves.

The seed case of Rock Elm is distinctive from American Elm and perhaps
the best clue of all is to
see the winged bark. But on these very young saplings it is not yet
time for winged bark to appear.

Also I question the rate of growth of American versus Rock elm. Rock
elm is supposed to be a slower
grower, but whether that pertains to saplings is doubtful since my
confirmed Rock Elm saplings seem
to grow almost as fast as American elm.

I sure would like to have a sure-fire way of differentiation because
soon I am going to start to graft
and I prefer to not waste time on a sapling that may or may not be
Rock Elm.

Is there a consensus on the most reliable and easiest form of graft?
And is it advisable to graft in
the middle of summer? I will use Siberian elm as rootstock that is
already growing in existing places.
I would like to simply make one cut of the Rock Elm and one cut on the
rootstock and then use
duct tape to bind around the bark interface and hold the stem upright
by secure attachment to a
metal rod and chicken wired as added support from wind.

Or is bud graft the only way to go?

Can grafting be done on a old mature tree that is cut to a stump? I
would think it be the preferred
rootstock since so much energy from the roots would go to any stems
such as a graft stem.

So I wonder if red pigment in new leaves of Rock Elm is a reliable
indicator that it is Rock Elm?

Also, recently I had a pleasure of learning of a new species Zelkova
(spelling) Japanese Elm and that
it is recent to Dutch Elm disease. So I wonder, is Zelkova a possible
rootstock for Rock Elm?

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

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Natural Science Forum / Biology / Botany / July 2008

Another way (perhaps the best way) of telling whether an elm is Ulmus Thomasii or not