elmtree

elmtree (plural elmtrees)

1. Alternative form of elm tree
   • 1848, Martin F[arquhar] Tupper, ““Together””, in Hactenus: Sundry of My Lyrics Hitherto. More Droppings from the Pen That Wrote “A Thousand Lines,” […], London: J. Hatchard and Son, […], page 78:

     The elmtree of old felt lonely and cold / When wintry winds blew high, / And, looking below, he saw in the snow / The ivy wandering nigh, / And he said, Come twine with those tendrils of thine / My scathed and frozen form, / For heart and hand together we’ll stand / And mock at the baffled storm, / Ha, ha! Together.

   • 1854, William Barnes, “Ruth a-riding”, in A Philological Grammar, Grounded upon English, and Formed from a Comparison of More than Sixty Languages. […], London: John Russell Smith, […], section “Rhyme”, subsection “Task”, page 300:

     Of all the roads that bridges bear / O’er waters shining in the heat, / Or bowneck’d steeds in summer wear / To flying dust with brightshod feet, / The dearest winds through Ryals glades, / Where, o’er the knaps in elmtree shades, / The airblown primrose blooms and fades, / And Ruth comes out a-riding.

   • 1961, Symposium: The Ecological Effects of Biological and Chemical Control of Undesirable Plants and Animals, E. J. Brill, page 116:

     As a result of the storing ability of many animals, important amounts of insecticides can move unchanged through a food chain in a community and thus cause heavy mortalities in animals other than those at which the original application of insecticide was aimed, (cf. Rudd): e.g. DDT spraying on elmtrees to control the Dutch elmtree-disease vector (a beetle) → DDT on leaves in trees→DDT in leaf litter→DDT in soil→DDT in earthworms→high mortality in worm-eating thrushes (American robins).