Dutch elm (Ulmus × hollandica ‘Jacqueline Hillier’)

Features and Characteristics

Ulmus × hollandica, commonly called Holland elm, is believed to be a hybrid of Ulmus glabra and Ulmus plottii or Ulmus minor. It is broadly columnar with a short trunk. Dark green leaves 3-5″ long turn yellow in autumn. The tree can grow up to 120′ tall and 80′ wide.

Genus name comes from the Latin name.

Specific epithet means of Holland, Netherlands.

‘Jacqueline Hillier’ is a dwarf, slow-growing, densely-branched, cultivar that was discovered growing in a garden in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. If left unpruned, it will typically grow in a shrubby form to 6-8′ tall by 6-8′ wide over the first 10-15 years, with an ultimate height of 10-12′ tall. It can be trained as a single stem small tree. Miniature, distichous, finely-toothed, typical elm-like, dark green leaves (each to only 1 1/3″ long) grow in a distinctive herringbone pattern along the branched stems. Leaves turn attractive shades of orange in fall.