All English elm trees could be descended from a single tree
brought here by the Romans, scientists say. An outbreak of Dutch
elm disease ravaged the trees in the 1970s Spanish researchers
who examined DNA from English elm told Nature magazine they
found almost no difference between elm from Britain, Spain and
Italy. The findings support historical evidence suggesting the
English elm is identical to the Italian Atinian elm. The Romans
used it to train vines for wine, as recorded by Spanish "garden
writer" Columella from AD50. Atinian elms reproduce asexually,
creating clones of themselves. Researchers, led by Luis Gil from
Madrid's City University, say this makes it possible that
English elms found today could all be clones of a single tree
shipped over to Britain 2,000 years ago. "Although it has been
suggested that the English elm was introduced during the Bronze
Age by Celtic tribes, our results support a hypothesis that it
corresponds to the Atinian elm, which was used for vine-training
by the Romans," the