Lockii and later as Ulmus plotii by Druce in 1907-11 (see 'Etymology'), is endemic mainly to the East Midlands of England, notably around the River Witham in Lincolnshire, in the Trent Valley around Newark-on-Trent,[6] and around the village of Laxton, Northamptonshire.
Ronald Melville suggested that the tree's distribution may be related to river valley systems, in particular those of the Trent, Witham, Welland, and Nene.
[27] The trees John Goodyer discovered were near the south coast at Pennington, Hampshire, some 200 miles away from centre of distribution of 'Plotii' and very dissimilar in structure.
Before the advent of Dutch elm disease, this slender, "loose-habited",[31] monopodial tree[32] grew to a height of 30 metres (98 ft) and was chiefly characterized by its cocked crown comprising a few short ascending branches.
The obovate to elliptic acuminate leaves are small, nearly equal at the base,[41] rarely > 4 cm in length, with comparatively few marginal teeth, usually < 70; the upper surfaces dull, with a scattering of minute tubercles and hairs.
[27][28] Stokes' Ulmus surculosa argutifolia (1812) [: 'bright-leaved twiggy elm'], considered by Rehder a description of the elm pre-dating Druce's by a century,[20] was likewise "a tree with erect stem and branches throughout its length, and with small elliptic leaves, scabrous above and villose beneath, 1 to 2.5 inches long, that narrowed at the base, with margins meeting petiole nearly opposite each other".
The tree was first classified by the Oxford botanist George Claridge Druce in 1907-11,[6][3][45][5][46][47] who found examples at Banbury and Fineshade, Northamptonshire, and published descriptions with photographs.
[6][48] William Henry Wheeler in his History of the fens of south Lincolnshire, being a description of the rivers Witham and Welland and their estuary (1897) – a Plot area – wrote: "The tree of the Fenland and the one which attains to a very large growth is the elm".
[59][60] An uncommon tree even before Dutch elm disease, 'Plotii' has also been affected by the destruction of hedgerows and by urban development within its limited range.
[citation needed] "A landscape of such trees," wrote Richens in 1956, "such as occurs in parts of northern Northamptonshire,[65] is highly distinctive, and rather suggestive of a Japanese print.
Wilkinson regarded as a "lost opportunity" the failure of East Midlands councils to cultivate this local elm in preference to exotic plantsmen's varieties.
A wartime shortage of wood, altered drainage levels, land clearance for power stations, and machine farming have all combined into the familiar pattern of short-term efficiency and long-term degradation.
[69] In the UK 'Plot Elm' was propagated and marketed by the Hillier & Sons nursery, Winchester, Hampshire, from 1949, with 38 sold from 1965 to 1977, when production ceased.
[citation needed] In the USA, the " U. minor = U. sativa " introduced as "young grafted plants" to the Arnold Arboretum, Massachusetts, c.1915, were probably Plot Elm, as the arboretum's July 1915 article on European Elms reporting this accession is based on Elwes and Henry's 1913 book (with its striking Plot photograph) and nomenclature.
[82] A mature avenue of the 'type' tree stood at Newton on Trent, Lincolnshire, in the early 20th century[83] and a notable quantity grew by the river Tove at Towcester and was present until at least 1955.
[27] A clearer, winter photograph appears in Bruce Jackson's Catalogue of the Trees & Shrubs in the Collection of Sir George Lindsay Holford (1927).
[55] The 1921 girth may point to the tree's source: it is consistent (on circumference-growth estimates for elm[86]) with a c.1820s planting date – that is, a about a decade after Stokes published his 1812 description, matching Westonbirt, and giving source-location, of his Ulmus surculosa argutifolia.
[21] Elwes and Henry examined Druce's 'type' trees in Banbury and the elms of Madingley Road, Cambridge, as well as the Westonbirt specimens, and considered all three the same "species".
[90] A double-stemmed weakly-suckering field elm resembling Ulmus plotii, with Plot-like form, fruit, bark, tracery, leaves and semi-long shoots, stands (2025) near Starbank Park, Newhaven, Edinburgh.
[6] Elms of the Ulmus × viminalis group have been cultivated since the 19th century and are believed to have given rise to the cultivar of that name, 'Viminalis' (known as 'Antarctica' in Europe) and to its sports 'Aurea', 'Marginata', 'Pulverulenta'.
[6][101][102] What appear to be two Plot elms stand in the background of Ernest Arthur Rowe's painting 'Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, The Rose Garden' (1898).
At the top was a short row of elms whose crests were asymmetrical – shaped like one-sided foam on a tankard of beer, as if exposed to a prevailing breeze.
Walter Hutchinson's four-volume Britain Beautiful (1920), a pictorial celebration of the British Isles that includes a number of elm landscapes, contains a photograph by Herbert Felton, FRPS (1888-1968) of a notable Plot elm by King's Mill, Stamford, Lincolnshire, c.1910, a tall, broad, undamaged double-stemmed tree, with long lateral boughs like a sparse-branched cedar of Lebanon.