Ulmus Thomasii - Other Uses

Other Uses

The wood of the rock elm is the hardest and heaviest of all elms, and where forest-grown remains comparatively free of knots and other defects. It is also very strong and takes a high polish, and consequently was once in great demand in America and Europe for a wide range of uses, notably shipbuilding, furniture, agricultural tools, and musical instruments.

Much of the timber's strength is derived from the tight grain arising from the tree's very slow rate of growth, the trunk typically increasing in diameter by < 2 mm a year. Over 250 annual growth rings were once counted in a log 24 cm square being sawn for gunwales in an English boatyard, while a tree once grown at Kew Gardens, London, attained a height of only 12 m in 50 years.