The wych elm is indigenous over the whole of the northern part of Great Britain, the largest recorded being at Studley Royal, in Yorkshire--105 feet high and 23 feet in girth at 5 feet up in 1905. As an element of the primæval Scottish forest, the wych elm must have been held in high esteem, judging from the number of Gaelic place-names commemorating it. The old Gaelic name for it was _leam_, plural _leaman_ (pronounced "lam" and "lamman"). Ptolemy's _Leamanonius lacus_ is now Loch Lomond, the lake of elms, out of which flows the Leven, which is the more modern aspirated form _leamhan_ (pronounced "lavan"); and we find the same association of names in eastern Scotland, where the Lomond Hills overlook the town of Leven. The Lennox district was formerly written Levenax, which is the adjectival form _leamhnach_ (lavnah), an elm wood. The rivers Lune and Leven in Lancashire (Ptolemy's Alauna), the Leven in Cumberland, and the Laune at Killarney all seem to indicate the former existence of elm woods on their banks. In the name Carlaverock is probably preserved another derivative--_caer leamhraich_, the fort among the elms. It was long supposed that the English elm (_U. campestris_) was not indigenous to England, seeing that it never propagates itself in these islands by seed. Its presence was explained by the convenient device of attributing its introduction to the Romans; but there is not a shred of evidence in support of this conjecture. The elm of Italy is quite a distinct species, according to Elwes and Henry, a fact with which Shakespeare, though familiar with "Warwickshire weeds" (as elms are called near Stratford-on-Avon), may not have been acquainted when he made Adriana plead with him she believed to be her husband: Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine; Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine; Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate. The English elm, however, grows luxuriantly in Spain, and ripens seed abundantly there, the tradition being current that it was introduced from England to the Royal Park at Aranjuez when Philip II. was laying out that demesne. Dr. Henry, however, considers it not improbable that this tree is truly indigenous in Spain, and that it is certainly so in the southern counties of England, where, as aforesaid, it reproduces itself only by suckers. Other examples are not wanting of certain plants yielding to climatic conditions, by resorting to reproduction by suckers and ceasing to produce seed.