Elm

The wych elm, also called Scots elm, ranges more widely than any other European elm: from Ireland east to the Urals and from the Arctic Circle south to the Peloponnese and Sicily, with outposts in the Caucasus, Turkey, Syria and Iran. It is a large deciduous tree of hill country, climbing to 1,500 metres where the soil is moist and the air damp, and it can grow forty metres tall. Its young shoots are tough and supple and lack the corky wings of many elms; the word wych itself comes from an Old English word for pliant. Once the commonest elm of northern and western Britain, it is the only elm whose native status there is beyond dispute. It sends up no suckers and spreads by seed alone, so with Dutch elm disease and deer eating the seedlings it has become uncommon across much of its former range. Kynes collects its lore: the Greeks linked elms with Morpheus, Virgil called the elm a tree of prophecy, and Greek, Roman and Celtic myth placed elms at the threshold of the otherworld or the faery realm. In Scotland a twig of wych elm laid beside the butter churn stopped fairies stealing the butter, and in Yorkshire wych elm tied to a horse's bridle protected the traveller. Cunningham carries elm to attract love and uses it against lightning.