Autumn colour
The grandest avenue in Paris keeps its most interesting tree off the main carriageway.
Photo: Polymagou (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Caucasian Elm
Zelkova carpinifolia
Europe lost most of its large elms to a fungus in the twentieth century, and these survived by not quite being elms. We map 12 of them, in 11 cities.
Zelkova carpinifolia is an elm relative from the mountain forests between the Black Sea and the Caspian, far less susceptible to Dutch elm disease, which is why trees this size still stand in the Latin Quarter and along the Avenue Foch. The shape gives it away: a short trunk breaking into a dense sheaf of near vertical stems, so the crown reads as a bundle held upright rather than a spreading canopy. Oxford's is the tallest recorded anywhere in Britain at around 33 metres. Dublin's was propagated into a named cultivar sold under the garden's own name. Florence's lost roughly two thirds of its height to surgery in the 1980s and is still on the national register.
Paris
Autumn colour
Paris lost most of its elms to a fungus, and this one survived by not quite being an elm.
Dublin
Autumn colour
A nurseryman in County Offaly once took cuttings from this exact tree and started selling clones of it.
Bath
Autumn colour
When Royal Victoria Park opened in 1830 as one of England's first public parks, its designers lined the south side of Royal Avenue with elms.
Madrid
Autumn colour
Nobody can agree how tall this tree is.
Photo: EnriqueSN (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Florence
Autumn colour
In the 1980s this tree lost roughly two thirds of its height in a single operation, and it is still on the national register.
Photo: Line1 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Valencia
Autumn colour
At roughly 33 metres, this is one of the tallest things growing in Valencia's botanic garden, and it belongs to a species most visitors have never heard of.
Washington DC
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When Union Square was rebuilt in the 1930s, five Caucasian elms survived the clearance.
Turin
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This tree is protected for being unusual rather than for being large.
Trieste
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Italy's monumental-tree register holds this elm twice.
Oxford
Autumn colour
Oxford's University Parks hold nine trees recognised as national champions, the tallest or largest recorded example of their species anywhere in Britain, and the Caucasian Elm on North Walk is the...
Bordeaux
Autumn colour
Bordeaux's register files this tree as the false elm of Siberia, which is wrong on the geography by about three thousand kilometres.
Explore by city: Paris · Dublin · Bath · Madrid · Florence · Valencia · Washington DC · Turin · Trieste · Oxford · Bordeaux · every city · or browse all species.