Look at the road behind you

[sovay]

Finally, the day is clear enough for me to get a good spring picture of the Jefferson elm on our street. I'm not sure how old it is, except not very. Per A Canterbury Tale (1944): "You can't hurry an elm."



My niece wanted to know what was so special about it, so I wound up explaining Dutch elm disease and the importance of resistant trees, like the survivor on the National Mall from which this sapling was cultivated. The city seems to have accepted us adopting it under the name of Bella Ptelea. That's pte-re-wa in Linear B.

Comments

[sovay]

Thank you so much for this!

You're welcome! I hope to go back over the course of the spring and follow its progress. For the obvious reasons, it's a tree I know very little about.

Elms are sort of mythical trees for me. They passed when I was very young.

Chestnuts all but died out here even longer ago—the 1940's. I've seen them in the Arboretum, but I don't know that I've seen the original American rather than blight-resistant Chinese chestnut. Did you lose them, too?

I don't know if my memory of them of standing in the field acoss the canal, thronged with rooks, is a true one. I hope so.

I hope it is. I don't even have memories like that.

The next village/suburb up from here is called Elmdon Heath, so at least they live on in names. (The fictional stand-in for my home is Elmsford. It feels right.)

I like that.

[ashlyme]

*Did you lose them too?*

I think we were lucky over here with chestnuts. That wave left us alone. Everyone knows about conkers, it seems like an old, old English game - but the horse chestnut was only introduced to Britain in the 1700s. The sweet chestnut is the real old native, but you hardly see them. Hopefully they're common elsewhere in the country.

*I hope it is. I don't even have memories like that.*

Dream or memory, you're welcome to share mine.

[cmcmck]

You see sweet chestnuts in abundance in this part of Shropshire as there was a coppice industry historically and I also grew up with them down in Kent- to me, sweet chestnut coppice woodland is what woodland is although a lot of what we also have here is ancient oak forest. :o)