U. pumila has been widely cultivated throughout Asia, North America, Argentina, and southern Europe, becoming naturalized in many places, notably across much of the United States.

[2][3] The Siberian elm is usually a small to medium-sized, often bushy, deciduous tree growing to 25 metres (82 feet) tall, the diameter at breast height to 1 m (3 ft 3 in).

The petiole is 4–10 millimetres (1⁄4–1⁄2 inch), pubescent, the leaf blade elliptic-ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, 2–8 by 1.2–3.5 centimetres (3⁄4 in–3+1⁄8 in × 1⁄2 in–1+3⁄8 in),[4] the colour changing from dark green to yellow in autumn.

[5] The perfect, apetalous wind-pollinated flowers bloom for one week in early spring, before the leaves emerge, in tight fascicles (bundles) on the last year's branchlets.

[6][7] Flowers emerging in early February are often damaged by frost (causing the species to be dropped from the Dutch elm breeding programme).

[13][14] A giant specimen, 45 kilometres (28 miles) southeast of Khanbogt in the south Gobi, with a girth of 5.55 m (18 ft 3 in) in 2009, may exceed 250 years (based on average annual ring widths of other U. pumila in the area).

[26] It also hybridizes in the wild with the native U. rubra (slippery elm) in the central United States, prompting conservation concerns for the latter species.

[29][30] In Europe it has spread widely in Spain, and hybridizes extensively there with the native field elm (U. minor),[31] contributing to conservation concerns for the latter species.

Owing to its high sunlight requirements, it seldom invades mature forests, and is primarily a problem in cities and open areas,[35][36] as well as along transportation corridors.

[40] Kew Gardens obtained specimens of U. pumila from the Arnold Arboretum in 1908 and, as U. pekinensis, via the Veitch Nurseries in 1910 from William Purdom in northern China.

[44][45] More recently, the popularity of U. pumila in the Great Britain has been almost exclusively as a bonsai subject, and mature trees are largely restricted to arboreta.

[47] The tree was cultivated at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Experimental Station at Mandan, North Dakota, where it flourished.

[48] It was consequently selected by the USDA for planting in shelter belts across the prairies in the aftermath of the Dustbowl disasters, where its rapid growth and tolerance for drought and cold initially made it a great success.

Attempts to find a more suitable cultivar were initiated in 1997 by the Plant Materials Center of the USDA, which established experimental plantations at Akron, Colorado, and Sidney, Nebraska.

[48] Valued for the high resistance of some clones to Dutch elm disease, over a dozen selections have been made to produce hardy ornamental cultivars, although several may no longer be in cultivation:

The species has been widely hybridized in the United States and Italy to create robust trees of more native appearance with high levels of resistance to Dutch elm disease: Other hybrid cultivars involving crossings with U. pumila: The unripe seeds have long been eaten by the peoples of Manchuria, and during the Great Chinese Famine they also became one of the most important foodstuffs in the Harbin region.

While already returning to the camp, we noticed in the distance a huge elm tree – 'karagatch', - lonely, towering amidst the surrounding endless desert.