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CHAPTER 6 Elms to Docks

Dicotyledonous flowering plants in the orders (and families) Urticales (Ulma-
ceae, elms; Cannabaceae, hemp and hop; Urticaceae, nettles), Myricales
(Myricaceae, bog-myrtles), Fagales (Fagaceae, beeches and oaks; Betulaceae,
birches), Caryophyllales (Aizoaceae, dew-plants; Chenopodiaceae, goose-
foots; Portulacaceae, blinks; Caryophyllaceae, pinks), Polygonales (Polygona-
ceae, knotweeds) and Plumbaginales (Plumbaginaceae, thrifts) are included
in this chapter.

Ulmaceae

Ulmus glabraHudson
wych elm
Europe, northern and western Asia; introduced into North
America
As the records for ‘elm’ remedies are almost exclusively Irish, it is probably
safe to assume that it is to Ulmus glabra that they mainly and perhaps even
wholly relate. For this is the only species accepted as indigenous in Ireland,
where pollen evidence suggests that it was extremely widespread at earlier
periods.
The commonest use appears to have been for scalds and burns. Caleb
Threlkeld in 1726 identified the ‘common elm’ as the source of a slimy decoc-
tion of the inner bark which he found country people in the north of Ire-
land applying as a salve.^1 It was still in currency for that purpose, or remem-
bered as such, in the 1930s in a band of counties stretching from Leitrim to
Wexford. The mucilage has also been valued since Classical times for skin