Constable painted them. Shakespeare wrote about them. And Francis Drake sailed the world in a ship made of them. English elms were a mainstay of England’s landscape and culture – until they all but disappeared in the 1970s due to the Dutch elm disease.
Since that devastation, when 25m elms were felled, enthusiasts and academics have searched for varieties resistant to the fungus spread by Scolytus beetles which kills the trees.
Results are mixed. Scientists in Europe and the US have created hybrids, but they are not always suitable for the British climate, and – a deciding factor for some elm fans – they do not have the shape of the classic English elm: a figure- figure-of-eight shape with branches spreading at the bottom and top of the skirt with a nipped-in waist in the middle.
Now there is growing excitement about a new disease-resistant variety that appears to have many of the characteristics of English elms, whose modern fans include King Charles, who said in 2017 that he “planted an avenue of [an American variety] at Highgrove then sadly watched as many of them succumbed”.
The new variety was created by Dr David Herling and Fergus Poncia, friends who were horrified to see elms being chainsawed as schoolboys.
“At the time, they said it wouldn’t be a problem because when you cut down an elm, it sends saplings from its roots,” said Poncia. “The problem is that once they reach 20 feet, they become attractive to insects and become infested again.
“David’s theory was to take a proven field-resistant elm and cross it with an English elm that had the classic form but was a survivor. We found a stand of elms at Tonge Mill near Faversham.”
The English elms which appeared so often in constable paintings, as The Hay Wain, was probably introduced to Britain by the Romans, who wanted a fast-growing tree to make bridges. They are known as Athenian elms, a variety of elms, and are distinct from wych elms which have been native to Britain since the Bronze Age and flourish in Scotland and northern England.
Elms of all types can be vulnerable to the Scolytus beetle, but their wood is resistant to the aquatic hookworms, making it ideal for bridge foundations in marshland and for the keels of ships, such as the Golden Hind.
Herling, who managed the graduate diploma in law at City University, where he trained advocates, befriended some Italian academics who had developed a disease-resistant elm and in 2014 they gave him some stock . He and Poncia took some saplings and waited for them to bloom. “When it flowers, you only have a window of a few hours, so you have to sit up overnight and watch and hope the others will flower at the same time. Then you remove the pollen from one with a paint brush and stick it on the other. It’s not like putting two bunnies in a cage and waiting.”
They ended up with 130 saplings, and Poncia, who worked as a solicitor for Southern Water, found some land to plant them at Wateringbury Sewage Treatment Works in Kent. “A wastewater treatment plant is ideal because deer can’t get in through the wire fence,” Poncia said. “Otherwise they will eat any saplings as they grow out of their protective tubes.”
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By 2018, the saplings were strong enough for the big test. The two men climbed up to inoculate the trees with the latest variety of Dutch elm disease. They left four that were both disease-free and seemed to have the upright shape and branch angle of an English elm, Poncia said. It was a moment of triumph, but with a cruel twist. Herling had to fight another disease, cancer, and passed away in March 2020. “David was in many ways not of his time – more suited to the Renaissance or the 18th century,” said his wife Joanna. “I think he felt how the elms in some ways ‘kept watch’ and represented something that should not have changed.
“He was always looking for the form that matched the ‘folk’ memory of the majestic elms of the English landscape
“I feel the DNA of our children is woven into the DNA of his elm research and creations. I remember seeing him as Mendel moved pollen between seedlings in the conservatory with a small paintbrush.”
Since Herling’s death, the work has continued. The four candidates were multiplied by researchers at the leading horticultural center NIAB EMR in East Malling, Kentand others were given to growers including the National Elm Collection in Brighton, the Lees Court Estate in Faversham and Gravetye Manor in East Grinstead.
Prof Richard Buggs, senior research leader at Kew, said that Herling and Poncia’s elms were “promising”. “[Herling’s] seems to have been particularly successful, and it’s very sad that he died just as it was coming to fruition,” he said. “We sequenced the genomes of the offspring of his cross because it gives us the opportunity to try to determine which parts of the genome really confer resistance.”
The ultimate goal of Poncia is to give away seedlings and saplings to repopulate the landscape. “People will only plant them if they cost a few pence, rather than trees from nurseries for £30 each,” he said. “We just want to restore the environment to what it was historically.”
