Common Trees of the North Carolina Piedmont

Stephen M. Seiberling, Alan S. Weakley, and Peter S. White


Ulmus alata Michx. Winged elm, wahoo. Family Ulmaceae. ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number 19051. USDA PLANTS Symbol ULAL. TROPICOS # 33300011.

Images • Branchlet with leaves. • Individual leaf. • Winged twig. • Branchlet with buds. • Close-up of buds. • Branchlet with flowers. • Close-up of fruits. • Herbarium sheet 1. • Herbarium sheet 2. • Herbarium sheet 3.

Detailed Description:

Plant habit and life style. Plants Angiosperms, synoecious, (5–)10–20(–35) m tall.

Stems. Pith continuous. Young twigs (1-year-old or less) gray or reddish-brown, glabrous or glabrate or pubescent, pilose or puberulent. Twigs (2–4 years old) glabrous or pubescent, winged or without special surface features. Leaf scars crescent-shaped or half-round or triangular, bundle scars 3(–6) per leaf scar, stipule scars present or inconspicuous, stipule scars not circumferential. Bark of mature trunks furrowed or ridged.

Buds. Buds axillary, brown or reddish-brown, (1–)2–5 mm long, ovoid, blunt or sharp, glabrous or glabrate or pubescent, puberulent, bud scales imbricate.

Leaves. Leaves deciduous, simple, petiolate or nearly sessile, alternate, distichous, 3–8(–11) cm long, 0.6–4 cm wide, falcate or lanceolate or oblanceloate or obovate or oval or ovate, leaf margins doubly serrate, leaf apices acuminate or acute, leaf bases cordate or cuneate or oblique or rounded. Leaf upper surface green, glabrous or glabrate. Leaf lower surface green, pubescent or with tufts in vein axils. Leaf venation pinnate. Petioles 0.1–0.8 cm long, pubescent. Stipules present, 20–25 mm long, caducous, not circumferential.

Flowers. Flowering January or February or March. Inflorescences axillary, racemes, flowers stalked. Flowers bisexual, hypogynous. Perianth. Calyx radially symmetric, synsepalous. Sepals 5(–9) per flower, brown or green, ovate, sepal apices rounded, persistent. Corolla absent. Androecium. Stamens 5 per flower. Gynoecium. Ovaries superior, pistils 1 per flower. Gynoecium syncarpous, 2 carpels per flower, styles 2 per pistil, placentation apical.

Fruits. Fruits samaras, 0.6–1 cm long, gray or tan, fruit maturation 1 years.

Habitat. Habitat bottomland forests or disturbed and weedy areas or dry-mesic upland forests or mesic upland forests or mixed forest edges or rock outcrops or suburban plantings.

Special Diagnostic Characters. Twigs often with corky wings; lateral leaf veins typically straight and parallel to one another.


Cite this publication as: ‘Stephen M. Seiberling, Alan S. Weakley, and Peter S. White (2005 onwards). Common Trees of the North Carolina Piedmont: Identification, Descriptions, Illustrations, and Glossary. Version: March 7, 2006. <http://www.ibiblio.org/openkey/intkey/>’.

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