The Wentworth Elms of Holyroodhouse

Two trees growing in the King's garden in Edinburgh were thought extinct in Britain for twenty years before anyone noticed they were still alive. The Wentworth elm is a weeping cultivar that never caught on widely, and when the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's own specimen died of Dutch elm disease in 1996, and the German nursery that first supplied the variety confirmed it had none left either, botanists assumed the tree was gone from the country entirely. It was not. A 2016 survey of the gardens at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, prompted by nothing more than routine record keeping, turned up two mature Wentworth elms that had been standing in plain sight the whole time, tall enough and photographed often enough that no one had thought to ask what species they actually were. Records show three arrived from a Berlin nursery in 1902, and ring counts from a third tree felled in 2008 dated it to around 1905, which makes the surviving two roughly 120 years old. Their identity gave itself away through a distinctive weeping habit and glossy, oversized leaves, first flagged by Dr Max Coleman of RBGE. The garden is included with a standard Palace of Holyroodhouse ticket, open April to September.