elm

Old English elm comes from Proto-Germanic *elmaz, which may trace to Proto-Indo-European *h1el- meaning 'red, brown' — a reference to the wood's color. The word has barely changed since it was written down. Latin ulmus, German Ulme, and English elm all name the same genus of broad-leaved trees that once lined the streets, fields, and hedgerows of Europe and North America.

Elm wood was prized for its resistance to water. It does not split easily when wet, which made it ideal for ship keels, water pipes, and coffins. The elm was the preferred wood for London's water mains until iron pipes replaced them in the 1800s. Medieval English longbows were sometimes made from elm when yew was unavailable. The tree was infrastructure.

Dutch elm disease arrived in Britain around 1927, carried by bark beetles in imported elm logs. The first epidemic killed many trees. The second, beginning in the late 1960s with a more virulent strain of the fungus Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, was catastrophic. Britain lost an estimated 25 million elms between 1967 and the early 1980s. The American epidemic, starting in the 1930s, killed roughly 100 million.

The disease is called 'Dutch' not because it originated in the Netherlands but because Dutch plant pathologists Bea Schwarz and Christine Buisman first identified it in the 1920s. The name honors the scientists, not the source. The fungus probably originated in Asia, where local elms had evolved resistance. European and American elms had not. The trees that had been everywhere became almost nowhere.