[3] Richens, noting that wych elm is rare in Huntingdonshire, normally flowering four to six weeks later than field elm, pointed out that unusually favourable circumstances would have had to coincide to produce such seed: "It is possible that, some time in the eighteenth century, the threefold requirements of synchronous flowering of the two species, a south-west wind" (wych does occur in quantity in Bedfordshire), "and a mild spring permitting the ripening of the samaras, were met.

The latter is indeed a similar cultivar, but raised much earlier in the 18th century from a tree growing at Chichester Hall, Rawreth in Essex.

[8][9] A distinguishing feature of 'Vegeta', according to Schneider (1906) and Mitchell (1974), is that the leaf margins to right and left of the petiole start from a vein, not from the midrib.

[17] The tree was one of four European cultivars found by researchers in The Netherlands to be resistant to the initial strain of Dutch elm disease, Ophiostoma ulmi, prevalent in the 1920s and '30s, the others being 'Monumentalis' Rinz, 'Berardii' and 'Exoniensis'.

The tree was widely planted in England, particularly between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1930s,[7] owing to its very rapid growth (< 3 m per annum) and attractive wide-spreading form, but its habit of forking sometimes led to splitting of the trunk and premature death.

[25] It was planted at the Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa, in 1893 as U. montana Huntingdoni,[26] Also introduced to Australasia (to Victoria in 1865[27]), the tree was marketed by several Australian nurseries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In London, many examples still survive, notably around the Millfields Recreation Ground, the largest measuring 31 m high by 88 cm d.b.h.

[36] In Wales, one very large tree (NT number 771, last recorded in 1995) stood in the grounds of Powis Castle, near Welshpool; others have been reported from Abergavenny and Caernarfon.

[17] The Rivers Nursery, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, which closed in the 1980s, was known to have sold seedlings, rather than clones, of the Huntingdon Elm, a practice which resulted in a lawsuit brought by a disgruntled nurseryman at the Oxford Assizes in 1847.