Lacebark elm

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Lacebark elm fruit

Lacebark elm bark

Lacebark elm leaves

Lacebark elm buds

Lacebark elm habit

Lacebark elm

Lacebark elm leaves

Lacebark elm leaves and inflorescences

Lacebark elm fruit

Morphology

Trunk

Trunk erect; bark gray, exfoliating in irregular tan, brown, and orange plates; wood reddish brown, hard.

Twigs

Tan to brown, glabrous, glabrate, or minutely pubescent, flexible; leaf scars half-round; buds reddish brown, cylindric-ovoid, .12 to .16 inch, scales minutely pubescent, margins ciliate.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules caducous, oblanceolate, .06 to .24 inch; petiole .08 to .3 inch, glabrous or minutely pubescent; blade elliptic to ovate or obovate, 1.4 to 2.4 inches long, .6 to 1 inch wide, base obliquely rounded, margins 1(-2)-serrate, apex acute, lower surface light green, glabrate, upper surface dark green, glabrous.

Flowers

Inflorescences axillary on branches of previous year; fascicles, 2-8-flowered; peduncles 0 to .06 inch; pedicels .08 to .16 inch, more or less equal, nearly glabrous. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals (3-)4-5, connate, calyx tube reddish brown, bell-shaped, .06 to .08 inch, glabrous; petals absent; stamens 3-4, .04 to .06 inch; pistil 1; styles 2, distinct; stigmas 2.

Fruit

October-November; samaras, green to light brown, elliptic to ovate, flat, .35 to .55 inch long, .2 to .4 inch wide, surfaces glabrous, margins glabrous, apex notched, tips overlapping; seed 1, yellowish brown to brown, compressed-ovoid, .16 to .2 inch long, .12 to .16 inch wide, smooth.

Ecology

Habitat

Urban woodlots and greenspaces, pastures, former mined lands, disturbed sites.

Distribution

Scattered in the wild in the east 1/2 of Kansas

Additional Notes