ulmus thomasii; identification
 

Of course the best identification is the corky bark. But there are
many rock-elm that have no corky bark and these are the troublesome
cases.

Now I wonder if a genome of the rock-elm and american-elm have
been completed? For I would like to know how many gene differences
there are between the two. Since some rock-elm are almost
indistinguishable from american elm I suspect there is perhaps
no clearcut boundary between the species. Maybe they were
never distinct species but rather hybrids of one species.

Now there is one new feature I am seeing on my assured
rock-elm. The only way I know for sure if it is rock-elm is to
see corky bark. And I notice that on my assured rock-elm that
the new leaves have a bright red tint. And this bright red tint
which goes away as the leaf becomes mature occurs only on
the rock-elm. So I wonder if this is a distinct feature of rock-elm
in that new leaves can be seen to have a reddish tint, some bright
red and very noticeable, others with a less red but still enough
red. And that american elm has no red new leaves.

It is not that I am having trouble with all rock-elm. Just those
that have no corky bark.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies