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May 7

Tree ID, please!

Hi all. I'm terrible at identifying trees, especially in the middle of winter when they have no leaves. Attached is a photo I took on Elm Grove, Brighton back in January. Elm Grove, surprisingly enough, is nationally famous for its elm trees ... but I don't want to misidentify it in the picture caption (it's going in the article, which I'm currently writing), so if I could have a positive ID for this tree I'd be very grateful. I did a Google Images search but can't be certain. Cheers, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 20:29, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it is an elm, though it would be easier if we had a close-up of the bark too. I think the ones on Elm Grove are Jersey elms (Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis). If I get a chance I'll have a closer look at that one over the weekend, it's not too far away from me. DuncanHill (talk) 20:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and if you email the address on Brighton & Hove's tree page they may be able to tell you - I've found them very helpful in the past. DuncanHill (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I'm not clever enough to tell - I'm not very good with elms, since there aren't too many around these days. The survival of seaside elms is thought to be because the sea breezes blow the Elm bark beetles inland. I thought Google might come to our rescue, and found a reference in this blog which says; "Freshfield Road, Brighton, has one of the finest examples of Dutch Elm (Ulmus x hollandica 'Hollandica') roadside pollards. They, like other trees planted in nearby Elm Grove, were planted around the late 1800s. However the Elm Grove trees were twice replaced and now have a totally different species which were planted around 1950. These are like those on the West Ride in Preston Park, Jersey elm". The photos on our Jersey elm page certainly look similar and indeed it mentions in the Accessions section, under Brighton & Hove City Council: "fine avenues at Surrenden Crescent, Elm Grove, Shirley Drive, Carden Hill". Sadly this doesn't seem to be directly referenced. Alansplodge (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good stuff; thanks both. I'll probably drop a line to the council arboricultural dept. to see if they have any info. My books refer to the original planting of elms in 1852 but not to any subsequent changes, so that's interesting. The Elm Grove trees certainly don't look identical to those on Freshfield Road (had a quick look on Google Street View; I haven't been up Freshfield for quite a while). One of my other photos (here) shows the bark of one of the trees a little more clearly; this one is about 100 yards up the road. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:13, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I took a look at the photo showing a closer view of the tree bark, and it certainly looks like an elm to me. OttawaAC (talk) 22:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is "How to recognize different trees from quite a long way away" no longer in the standard curriculum? —Tamfang (talk) 03:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not down in deepest Sussex, sadly; although in junior school I remember an entertaining lesson where we were taken down the park to examine trees blown down in the Great Storm of 1987, climb over them, poke around in the soil and generally have a "jolly good time". Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 07:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, when the National Curriculum came in, Nature Studies, Sewing, and Making Jam were replaced with Science and Design and Technology. Small children can no longer identify trees from rubbings of their bark, but they can connect a lightbulb to a battery. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 12:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And right on cue, a story in today's Argus about the demise of two of the city's elms... Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 07:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're all agreed that it's an elm, but identifying which one is the tricky bit. "Dr Fred" of the Natural History Museum I/D Team says on the elm problem: "This is one reason why there is contention over how to recognise these things taxonomically - they may generally be fairly distinctive but are we just looking at clonally propagated distinct individuals? Leaf shape and tree shape are of most use to discriminate them - the problem comes that these days we have few mature trees (so we can't tell what shape they'd be) and the leaves on the juvenile suckering shoots, which are what we now largely have in our hedgerows, are not as distinctive as those on the short shoots of mature specimens!".[1] Alansplodge (talk) 08:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is all fantastic stuff. I particularly like the big elm on the Lewes Road outside the Cockcroft Building of the University of Brighton. I also counted 26 on The Avenue, Moulsecoomb, some very young, which I suppose would be Jersey elms. I created a stub for Whitehawk Hill, which was a red link in the Elm Grove article. There was already Whitehawk Camp but it doesn't fit in this context. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is that the huge tree on the corner of the road that leads to Moulsecoomb station? It does look impressive. The tree planting on the estates (especially Moulsecoomb and Bevendean) has definitely been a success story. (Did I read on one of the links provided above that some of them are particularly rare types of elm?) I've got some sources for Whitehawk Hill, so that will give me something to work on when I've finished Elm Grove :) Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 18:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's the one. It might hold a record for the biggest elm tree growing out of a pavement. Great if you can add to Whitehawk Hill. We now have separate articles on the hill, the camp and the suburb, but I think it's necessary, as they are all separate concepts. Itsmejudith (talk) 01:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, according to Tamfang's reference (available here) it is not the larch. μηδείς (talk) 20:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]