likely culprit for never a Rock Elm seed anymore is Dutch Elm Disease
 

Sorry I misspelled Herbarium in the previous post and
sorry that this post is disjoint from the thread, because
Google posting is "down". It used to be that we could
make followup replies with Google newsgroups but they
are "down".

Anyway, coming to think about why no Ulmus Thomasii
seeds in the past decade is probably due to Dutch Elm
Disease or ascomycete microfungi. Probably that the
fungus affects the seed production of Ulmus Thomasii
the worst. So that all Rock Elm will never bear seeds
if there is the fungus present. Now that is just my
speculation and not any research. I have tried gathering
seeds from nearby Rock Elm and have never found any for the past 5
years. I had thought I had Rock Elm some years past but those trees
are now showing up as American Elm. So some American elm seed had
blown onto the site where a Rock Elm was located.

I am calling an alarm because, if my speculation is true, then we need
to go into action in order to not have
Rock Elm go extinct. If we cannot get any seeds, the
species will go extinct. So the only way to save them
is via grafting or via cuttings and until some future time
when we can get the fungus under control.

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

likely culprit for never a Rock Elm seed anymore is Dutch Elm Disease
 

Archimedes Plutonium wrote in
:

Sorry I misspelled Herbarium in the previous post and
sorry that this post is disjoint from the thread, because
Google posting is "down". It used to be that we could
make followup replies with Google newsgroups but they
are "down".

Anyway, coming to think about why no Ulmus Thomasii
seeds in the past decade is probably due to Dutch Elm
Disease or ascomycete microfungi. Probably that the
fungus affects the seed production of Ulmus Thomasii
the worst. So that all Rock Elm will never bear seeds
if there is the fungus present. Now that is just my
speculation and not any research. I have tried gathering
seeds from nearby Rock Elm and have never found any for the past 5
years. I had thought I had Rock Elm some years past but those trees
are now showing up as American Elm. So some American elm seed had
blown onto the site where a Rock Elm was located.

I am calling an alarm because, if my speculation is true, then we need
to go into action in order to not have
Rock Elm go extinct. If we cannot get any seeds, the
species will go extinct. So the only way to save them
is via grafting or via cuttings and until some future time
when we can get the fungus under control.


Rock Elm isn't common in South Dakota, as I understand is the location
you are growing them. The trees need to be about 20 years old to flower,
and like other spring flowering elms, if the winter is too cold, or if
there is a cold snap at the wrong time, you may not get seeds.

Sean


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