Ulmus Triumph™

Triumph™ elm with its strong, upright branching is easier to train and with its deep green, highly glossy foliage is more attractive as a young tree compared to other elms. The foliage turns yellow in the fall. At a young age, this selection exhibits an upright-oval form, becoming more vase-shaped with age. Triumph™ elm has excellent disease resistance, and moderate insect resistance to elm leaf beetle and Japanese beetle. Triumph™ elm was developed through a controlled cross conducted by Dr. George Ware at The Morton Arboretum using Accolade™ elm (U. davidiana var. japonica) as the female parent and Vanguard™ elm (U. pumila × davidiana var. japonica) as the male parent.

The elm improvement program at The Morton Arboretum was initiated to address the need for an alternative to the American elm which was suffering signifi cant losses at the time due to Dutch elm disease. Hundreds of open-pollinated seedlings were examined and evaluated for Dutch elm disease-resistance, production ease, hardiness, and landscape performance in the Midwestern U.S. Controlled crosses then led to the development of Triumph™ elm with its glossy dark green foliage and upright-rounded habit.