Ulmus 'Karagatch'

Ulmus hybrid cultivar
'Karagatch' at Kew Gardens, 2007
Hybrid parentage	U. pumila × U. × androssowii?
Cultivar	'Karagatch'
Origin	Kazakhstan

Ulmus 'Karagatch' is a hybrid cultivar from Turkestan (from a region now part of Turkmenistan), selected in the early 20th century and considered either a backcrossing of U. × androssowii and U. pumila, or simply a cultivar of × androssowii. It was grown from seeds, introduced from Bairam Ali in Russian Turkestan by Arthur P. Davis in the 1930s, as U. 'Karagatch', under which name it was planted at Kew.

The Kew specimen (mature by the 1990s but felled in 2015 as 'unsafe') had the appearance of a northern European field elm, more tall than broad. 'Karagatch' was described by the US Department of Agriculture (1917) as a "rapid-growing elm", suitable for semi-arid regions, with harder wood than that of American Elm.

'Karagatch' at Kew Gardens, 1990

No information available.

The name 'karagatch' (:'black tree' in the Turkic languages, widely used for 'elm') has historically also been applied to U. minor 'Umbraculifera' (syn. U. densa) from the same region [1], and more loosely to field elm found in Turkey and to U. pumila found in Mongolia.