Ulmus 'Atropurpurea'

The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Atropurpurea' [:dark purple] was raised from seed at the Späth nursery in Berlin, Germany, circa 1881, as Ulmus montana atropurpurea,^[1][2] and was marketed there till the 1930s,^[3][4] being later classed as a cultivar by Boom.^[5][6] Henry (1913) included it under Ulmus montana cultivars but noted that it was "very similar to and perhaps identical with" Ulmus purpurea Hort.^[2] At Kew it was renamed U. glabra Huds. 'Atropurpurea',^[7] but Späth used U. montana both for wych elm and for some U. × hollandica hybrids,^[8] so his name does not necessarily imply a wych elm cultivar. The Hesse Nursery of Weener, Germany, however, which marketed 'Atropurpurea' in the 1950s, listed it in later years as a form of U. glabra Huds..^[9][10][11]

Photographs of the 'Atropurpurea' hedge at Wakehurst Place, England, though they show untypical 'pollard' leaves, appear to confirm that Späth's cultivar was similar to Ulmus purpurea Hort., probably the hybrid 'Purpurea' already in cultivation and in Späth's catalogues as U. campestris purpurea,^[3][4] which he distributed separately.^[12][13]