Europe lost most of its large elms in the second half of the twentieth century, which is reason enough to look at a field elm planted in 1915 and still standing.
Field Elm
French has a phrase for being kept waiting: attendez-moi sous l'orme, wait for me under the elm. This page maps every field elm on the site, 5 so far across 5 cities.
The elm in question stood in front of the Saint-Gervais church in Paris, where debts were repaid on agreed days and judges heard disputes in the shade, and an elm has stood on that spot since the Middle Ages. The one there now was planted in 1935, after the Revolution felled its predecessor, allegedly for cannon carriages; the motif survives in the wrought iron balconies around the square, worked into the metal in the 1730s. Ulmus minor was the species Dutch elm disease hit hardest, which is why the other two matter. Vienna's was planted in 1915 on a green strip down the middle of a street. Trento's is 393 centimetres round and carries no age at all.
Vienna
Paris
Photo: Mbzt (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This elm is not particularly old.
Parma
Dutch elm disease reached Italy in the 1930s and took most of the country's mature field elms with it over the following two decades, the same epidemic that emptied European streets and parks of th...
Portland
Thirty five metres tall on a trunk 4.5 metres round, which makes this the tallest street tree in Irvington and one of the tallest elms anywhere on this site.
Trento
Europe lost most of its mature elms inside a single lifetime, and this one is still standing.
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