[4][5] Augustine Henry had earlier noted that the supposed English elms planted extensively in the Royal Park at Aranjuez from the late 16th century onwards, specimens said to have been introduced from England by Philip II[6] and "differing in no respects from the English elm in England", behaved as native trees in Spain.

[13] Max Coleman of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh writes: "The advent of DNA fingerprinting has shed considerable light on the question.

A number of studies have now shown that the distinctive forms that Melville elevated to species and Richens lumped together as field elm are single clones, all genetically identical, that have been propagated by vegetative means such as cuttings or root suckers, as the flowers are completely sterile.

[7] While the upper branches form a fan-shaped crown, heavy, more horizontal boughs low on the bole often give the tree a distinctive 'figure-of-eight' silhouette.

Sitting there alone in the spring sunshine, in the solitude of the roof, he saw the glamour of this England of hedgerows and elm trees, and the labourers with slow horses slowly drilling the sod, crossing the brown furrow, and the chequer of fields away to the distance.

The English elm was once valued for many purposes, notably as water pipes from hollowed trunks, owing to its resistance to rot in saturated conditions.

It was used to a degree in furniture manufacture, but not to the same extent as oak, because of its greater tendency to shrink, swell, and split, which also rendered it unsuitable as the major timber component in shipbuilding and building construction.

In 1913, Henry Elwes wrote, "Its true value as a landscape tree may be best estimated by looking down from an eminence in almost any part of the valley of the Thames, or of the Severn below Worcester, during the latter half of November, when the bright golden colour of the lines of elms in the hedgerows is one of the most striking scenes that England can produce".

Pliny, however, in his Natural History pointed out that the Atinian elm was not considered suitable for vineyards on account of its dense foliage.

[8][41] More than a thousand years after the departure of the Romans from Britain, English elms found far greater popularity, as the preferred tree for planting in the new hawthorn hedgerows appearing as a consequence of the Enclosure movement, which lasted from 1550 to 1850.

[48] English elm was introduced into Ireland,[49] and as a consequence of Empire has been cultivated in eastern North America and widely in south-eastern Australia and New Zealand.

Some of the most significant remaining stands are to be found overseas, notably in Australia, where they line the streets of Melbourne, protected by geography and quarantine from disease.

[62][63][64] Large free-standing English Elms in Tumut, New South Wales,[65] and Traralgon, Victoria,[66] show the 'un-English' growth-form of the tree in tropical latitudes.

This cordon sanitaire, aided by the prevailing southwesterly onshore winds and the topographical niche formed by the South Downs, has saved many mature elms.

Amongst these were possibly the world's oldest surviving English elms, known as the 'Preston Twins' in Preston Park, both with trunks exceeding 600 cm in circumference (2.0 m dbh), though the larger tree lost two limbs in August 2017 following high winds,[76] and was felled in December 2019 after succumbing to DED.

[80] Crossability experiments conducted at the Arnold Arboretum in the 1970s apparently succeeded in hybridizing English elm with U. glabra and U. rubra, both also protogynous species.

However, the same experiments also showed English elm to be self-compatible, which in the light of its proven female-sterility, must cast doubt on the identity of the specimens used.

[84] The 2004 study, which examined "eight individuals classified as English elm" collected in Lazio, Spain, and Britain, noted "slight differences among the Amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting profiles of these eight samples, attributable to somatic mutations".

[86] Melbourne Botanic Gardens were able to raise seedlings from the "few" viable seeds of what was believed to be a "type" old English Elm in the collection, producing "highly variable" offspring.

[94] Among classic photographs of English elm are those by Edward Step and Henry Irving in Wayside and Woodland Trees, A pocket guide to the British sylva (1904).