The disease-busting hybrids that could bring back the majestic English elm

The tree all but vanished in the 1970s. Now, thanks to two amateur nature lovers, it may soon grace our landscapes again

Constable painted them. Shakespeare wrote of them. And Francis Drake sailed the world in a ship made from them. English elms were a mainstay of England’s landscape and culture – until they all but disappeared to Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.

Since that devastation, when 25m elms were felled, enthusiasts and academics have searched for varieties resistant to the fungus spread by Scolytus beetles that kills the trees.