Elm tree reintroduction project starts

By Stephen Adams Published: 12:37PM GMT 07 March 2010

From the 1960s onwards about twenty-five million English elms were wiped out by Dutch elm disease, caused by a mildew that had been alien in a collection of putrescent timber.

It had been thought that nothing survived but a consult proposed by the Natural History Museum in 2003 detected a integrate of hundred grown up examples still living.

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Saplings were taken by the Conservation Foundation, a gift founded by David Bellamy and David Shreeve, to begin a programme of reintroduction opposite the country.

The initial collection is being sent out to schools this month.

Mr Shreeve said: "We wish to seductiveness a new era in the elm, so most a underline of the British hold up and landscape for centuries and additionally to try and find out because a little trees survived Dutch elm disease.

"So most have left over new years that we can usually goal to reinstate some. But rather than only give up and dont think about the elm, we think the value a try."

The beginning is called the Great British Elm Experiment, and aims to find out because a couple of trees did tarry the fungus.

The English elm was radically introduced by the Romans. Tree experts hold all examples are descended from a singular sort of tree, brought over to assistance await vines.

As such the descendants are radically clones. The following miss of genetic farrago might well have done them unusually receptive to infection.