The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera' [:shade-giving] was originally cultivated in Iran, where it was widely planted as an ornamental and occasionally grew to a great size, being known there as 'Nalband' Persian: نعلبند [:the tree of the farriers][1] ("the famous 'Smithy elm' of Persia, where its dense top often forms the shelter of the native forgers"[2]).

Litvinov considered it a cultivar of a wild elm with a dense crown that he called U. densa, from the mountains of Turkestan, Ferghana, and Aksu.

[18][19][20] Henry's statement (1913) that "it differs from ordinary U. nitens [: U. minor] only in its peculiar habit"[3] suggests that, in one form of the tree at least, the leaf is not distinctive.

[23] An early 20th-century Samarkand photograph in Schedae ad Herbarium florae URSS (1922) (see Gallery), shows that 'Umbraculifera' ('Bubyriana') is not dissimilar in appearance to its putative hybrid Ulmus 'Androssowii'.

In 'Umbraculifera' the twigs are red-brown and never corky, the leaves are clearly and sharply double-toothed, only slightly pubescent beneath when young and soon smooth, and the obovate fruit is wedge-shaped at base and about 1.5 cm long, with the seed close to the notch.

[4] Bean remarked that the tree succeeded well on the continent (Europe) and in eastern North America,[26] but was rarely planted in the UK.

[29] The tree featured, as "Späth's globe-headed elm", on the cover of the 1913 catalogue of Klehms' nurseries of Arlington Heights, Illinois, with a detailed description.