The Field ElmcultivarUlmus minor'Atinia Variegata', the Variegated-leaved common English Elm, formerly known as U. procera 'Argenteo-Variegata' and described by Weston as U. campestris argenteo-variegata, is believed to have originated in England in the seventeenth century and to have been cultivated since the eighteenth. The Oxford botanist Robert Plot mentioned in a 1677 Flora a variegated elm in Dorset, where English Elm is the common field elm. Elwes and Henry had no doubt that the cultivar was of English origin, "as it agrees with the English Elm in all its essential characters". At the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, the tree was listed as U. procera 'Marginata', as the variegation is sometimes most obvious on leaf-margins. Variegated English elm is not to be confused with the more common Field Elm cultivar U. minor 'Argenteo-Variegata', also known as U. minor 'Variegata', the Silver Elm or Tartan Elm, which has similar markings but narrower leaves.
Description
described the tree as having leaves striped, spotted and margined with white. The photograph in Krüssman of a specimen in Schönaich-Carolath Park, Hamburg, shows the typical, almost orbicular leaves of English elm, but variegated. In other respects the form of the tree is similar to the type. The tree, which is the only variegated English Elm in cultivation, sometimes produces variegated suckers.
Variegated English Elm has been in commerce since the 18th century, and remains so in the UK, the United States, and Australia. In the Royal Victoria Park, Bath, in the mid-19th century it was listed as U. campestris foliis variegatis, "the variegated-leaved common English Elm". The Späth nursery of Berlin supplied an U. campestris fol. argenteis marginatis to the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, Canada in 1897, which may have been variegated English Elm, as well as an U. campestris variegata argentea and an U. campestris fol. argenteis variegatis, possibly Silver Elm or Tartan Elm. A cultivar listed as U. procera 'Argenteovariegata' or U. procera 'Variegata' was cultivated in Sweden, where specimens may survive.
Notable trees
A notable specimen of variegated English Elm in Leek Wootton, Warwickshire, was the subject of an article in The Gardeners' Chronicle in 1878. It was probably the "fine specimen" of variegated English Elm "on the main road between Warwick and Coventry, whose suckers were as variegated as the parent", that Bean noted in the 1930s. The tree was still standing in the 1960s, and survives as sucker regrowth. Gerald Wilkinson reported that "great specimens" of variegated English Elm could still be seen in the early 1970s at Kew, at Kenwood, and in many large gardens. The Kenwood specimen seen by Wilkinson may have been the same tree noted there by Augustine Henry, measuring 75 feet in 1909.
Synonymy
? U. campestris fol. maculatis: Loddiges,, Catalogue 1823, p. 35.
