SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY ELMS

Putting Elms Back on Streets: Fungus-Resistant ‘Liberty' Trees Growing in Valley Towns (Dan Billin, 7/04/03, Valley News)

When Roy Thomas looks at the young elm trees surrounding the village green, he can imagine both the past and the future. [...]

In the late 1980s, people in Woodstock and a few other towns around the Upper Valley began planting “Liberty” elms, descendants of American elms that had proved resistant to Dutch elm disease. The fungus is estimated to have wiped out half the American elms in the United States after reaching this country in 1930.

About 50 of the Liberty elms were planted around the edges of the Woodstock green, which had been ringed by mature elm trees before the fungus hit the town in the 1950s. Two of the Liberty elms subsequently died of Dutch elm disease, but the rest are going strong.

“They're working out beautifully,” said Thomas.

The young trees have just barely started to arch out towards the street, hinting at the tall, vase-shaped form that helped make the American elm a favorite choice for streetside planting. Thomas, a professional horticulturist who trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in London, spread his hands in an expansive wave as he described the beautiful canopy they'll eventually make.

A similar passion for the beauty of the American elm is evident in the voice of Dartmouth College tree warden David DiBenedetto when he talks about his charges.

“It's a great look,” one that just can't be matched by other species, he said.

Add to the species' visual impact its vigor in the face of air pollution and the ground compaction that accompanies street and building construction, and you have “the perfect street tree,” DiBenedetto said.

A massive Dartmouth tree known as the Parkhurst elm, located in front of the administration building of the same name, actually sits partly in the roadway of North Main Street. The fact that the pavement went around the tree over the years instead of the tree coming down is a testament to the affection elm trees engender, DiBenedetto said. [...]

The Liberty strains of American elm were developed by the Elm Research Institute, a New Hampshire nonprofit organization formed in the 1960s with the “Johnny Elmseed” mission of bringing back the species. The institute grows Liberty seedlings at its nursery in Westmoreland, N.H., and says it has distributed 250,000 of them.

The trees are sweet anyway, but the name makes them that much cooler. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 4, 2003 2:07 PM