Aria edulis (Willd.) M.Roem.

A tree usually 30 to 50 ft high in gardens, but occasionally met with 60 to 80 ft high; main branches more or less erect; young branchlets clothed with loose white hairs, becoming nearly glabrous and lustrous dark brown by winter and furnished with pale lenticels; winter-buds ovoid, the scales greenish, brown and hairy at the edge, glabrous or slightly woolly on the back. Leaves simple, with eight to thirteen pairs of parallel ribs, elliptic to broadly so or ovate, rarely obovate, 2 to 4 in. long, half to two-thirds as wide, obtuse or acute at the apex, narrowed or rounded at the base, margins double-toothed except in the basal part which is simple-toothed or entire, upper surface lustrous, glabrous except when quite young, coated beneath with a close white felt; petiole 1⁄2 to 1 in. long. Flowers dull white, about 1⁄2 in. across, produced towards the end of May in corymbs 2 to 3 in. across; stalks and receptacles covered with white, matted hairs. Fruits ovoid or roundish, 3⁄8 to 1⁄2 in. long, scarlet-red, specked with brownish lenticels.

Native of southern England as far west as Dorset, but naturalised outside this area; in Ireland only in Galway; on the continent it is fairly widely distributed but is absent from Scandinavia and overlaps in southeast and parts of central Europe with minor related species; it does not occur in Asia.

There is no tree more characteristic of the chalk hills of England, or more beautiful in fruit. It is very effective in the breeze when the wind, by lifting the leaves, reveals the pure white undersurface in kaleidoscopic glimpses. A tree well laden with the bright red fruits is also one of the most beautiful of autumn pictures, but one that owing to the depredations of birds is often of short duration. It is best propagated by seeds, but the young plants grow very slowly at first. The timber is hard and heavy but too scarce to count for much in the timber trade. The largest tree recorded by Elwes and Henry grew at Camp Wood, near Henley-on-Thames, and was 75 × 43⁄4 ft in 1905. One of the largest recorded recently grows, appropriately, at Colesbourne in Gloucestershire, where it was planted by Elwes in 1904. It measures 50 × 6 ft (1975). Others are: Trawscoed, Aberystwyth, 58 × 6 ft (1969); Marble Hill, Twickenham, 50 × 41⁄2 ft (1968).

The whitebeam has many varieties, some wild, others of garden origin. The most distinct are:

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Deer Wood, Shottermill, Surrey, 65 × 61⁄2 ft (1981); Gatton Park, Surrey, 42 × 63⁄4 ft (1979); Wakehurst Place, Sussex, Valley, 62 × 51⁄4 ft (1984); Alexandra Park, Hastings, Sussex, Bohemia Wood, 72 × 51⁄4 ft (1983); Sandford Park, Cheltenham, Glos., pl. 1925, 46 × 5 ft (1978); Teriing Place, Essex, 62 × 61⁄4 ft (1977); Stoke Rochford, Lines., 62 × 7 ft (1978); Castle Ashby, Northants, 35 × 8 ft and 70 × 9 ft at 3 ft (1983); Munches, Kircud., 66 × 51⁄2 ft (1985); Dunecht, Aberd., 36 × 7 ft (1983).

cv. ‘Majestica’. – specimens: Primrose Hill, London, 50 × 63⁄4 ft and 42 × 61⁄2 ft (1981); Borde Hill, Sussex, below Car Park, 48 × 43⁄4 ft (1978); Westonbirt, Glos., Willesley Drive, 68 × 7 ft at 3 ft (1975) and in Waste, pl. 1932, 44 × 43⁄4 ft (1981); Stourhead, Wilts., near House, 55 × 6 ft (1980).