Olm (Catalan) | Ulmeiro (Galician) | Ulmeiro, negrilho (Portuguese) | Olmo (Spanish) | Orme (French)
Ulmus is a genus of plants belonging to the Ulmaceae family, commonly known as elms. It has about 40 accepted taxa out of more than 300 described.
Deciduous or semi-deciduous trees that are spread throughout the northern hemisphere. Elm trees have suffered a sharp decline in Europe due to graphiosis and this decline has also affected populations of the butterfly Satyrium w-album, whose caterpillar feeds mainly on elm leaves.
Graphiosis, very active in the last 100 years, is caused by a fungus (Ceratocystis ulmi) that attacks most of the species that as a result are today in danger of extinction (it was considered one of the most frequent trees in the world before of the epidemic).
Beetles (Hylurgopinus rufipes, American and European Scolytus multistriatus) carriers of the fungus spread the disease, mainly in Eastern Europe. The common elm population is believed to have decreased by 80-90%.
They have alternate leaves, simple and serrated, generally asymmetrical at the base.
The inconspicuous flowers are hermaphrodite without petals and with a persistent calyx. They produce pollen in abundance. The elms around us flower and bear fruit in late winter, when even they and surrounding deciduous trees are leafless.
Its fruiting consists of bright green samaras, abundant, although many may lack seed.
A taproot or taproot tree, a root that grows vertically downwards, very strong, acting as a piling, and has been used from the 12th century to the present day to stabilize the soil on the banks of canals and polders in the Netherlands.
The bark is brown or greyish-brown, longitudinally cracked, thin, cork-like twigs, cork-like, but with smooth brown bark.
The bark is used to make tinctures for the treatment of severe infections caused by bacteria of the Clostridium genus, which are often resistant to antibiotics.
