Siberian Elm — MEET THE GREEN

I can’t remember who first showed me Siberian Elm. Perhaps it was Paul Bergner, one of my main herbal mentors, or one of my forestry professors years before that.

What I can remember is the first time I fully realized how powerfully medicinal it could be.

The regular, alternate arrangement of the leaves here is one of the clues that this is *Ulmus pumila.* That alternate pattern is carried on, fractal style, in the way the leaves arrange their veins.

It was a colder than usual March day, and I was teaching a plant walk at the edge of a farm. We had just had 10 inches of snow, and whilst digging through a drift to get at some burdock, several students suddenly stepped back with a squelch and a chorus of “ewwwwws!!!”. They had found the storm broken branches of Siberian elm. The cracked bark, when meeting the melting snow, had begun to ooze mucilage onto their boots, leaving 8-inch strings of slime as they lifted their feet. At the time I remember thinking, Now that’s a moistening herb.

Fresh *Ulmus pumila* bark being dried in bundles perfect for a 1 quart infusion. To get the most bang for your buck mucilage-wise, the bark extracts best in cold infusions. Hot infusions work just fine too, but you’ll tend to get a bit more in the way of the tannic aspects of the outer bark. Not a big deal, but the tea will be darker, and have a little more of an astringent effect, along with the demulcent, moistening aspect.

Ulmus pumila (Siberian elm) Ulmaceae

Vitalist Actions and Energetics: Cool and moist, relaxant
Clinical Actions: demulcent, emollient, nutritive, anti-inflammatory
Parts used: bark, leaves, fruits

Native to Eurasia, Siberian Elm or Ulmus pumila is our premier weedy tree species in much of the Southwest. I’ve used this for almost a decade as an abundant and non-endangered replacement for our native Eastern slippery elm, Ulmus fulva. Dried and processed into a powder, Siberian elm can be used added to applesauce for those convalescing from acute illness (digestive or otherwise). If you are like me and are simply too slothful to crush the dried bark into a powdered state, you can dry it in small strips and just use it that way

While not as fun to mix with applesauce, its just fine for decoction, overnight infusion, or adding into broths and stews, where it makes a stellar thickener. I’ve used both the infused ground leaves and the bark layered onto mild burns, and oooh, its delightful gooeyness is soothing.

A surprising trait I’ve found is that Siberian bark will continue to goo-out in a profound way, even after several infusions. I was camping at a conference once, and taking copious amounts of demulcents to keep my throat from drying out (both from the dry climate and teacher nerves). I had put a bundle of bark into my water bottle and was continually reinfusing until I realized it had been 4 days with the same herb. Not sure if it was because I left the outer bark on, which meant I was getting a little bit of preservation from the tannins, or because I never let it get much above 60 degrees, or because I was changing out the water frequently. Regardless, it was a pleasant surprise which I’ve replicated a few times now (and which I haven’t been able to do with other demulcent herbs.

PLEASE NOTE: I’m not advocating that you let your infusions sit for 4 days. I’ve also had Siberian elm infusions go really bad on me during the summer months. Experiment yes, but also use a heaping dollop of common sense. If it smells gnar, it probably is.

Starting off as bright green fruits in late March to Mid April, the winged fruits only stay green and tasty a short time, usually turning papery and brown within a few short weeks. Feast while you can!

Along with being a premier demulcent and emollient, Siberian elm is also a choice wild edible.

The fruits, in this case, called a samara, show up around early-mid April in the Colorado Front Range foothills (around 5,500 ft). They are some of the first truly tasty and abundant wild edibles to mature, making their presence known through their intense chartreuse color.

This is the time you want to harvest them, as once they begin to darken and dry out, they are far less palatable (yes, yes, you can winnow the seeds from the papery wing...you first professor. I have yet to develop a fast way to do this, and do not have the patience to spend hours on minimal calories). Fresh, they can be eaten straight up as a wild snack, or incorporated into something more civilized, like a salad or stir fry. The flavor is somewhere between fresh green beans and water chestnuts (including the satisfying crunch).

Note the regulation 5 gallon bucket (classy), and 30 ft tall Colorado Blue Spruce (*Picea pungens*) for scale. This is a young tree, only about 7 years old, but already exhibiting the branched trunk habit seen in specimens many years its senior.

You’ll see Siberian Elms in a few different forms.

When left to its own devices, it grows to a 30-60 foot tree with a short main trunk (3-12 ft), which branches into 2-4 smaller trunks. It can also show up as a small-large shrub or even hedge when trimmed. The leaves are deciduous, ovate with a serrated margin, and have a distinctive herringbone venation pattern (also known as pinnate). The above-mentioned samaras develop from tiny, perfect flowers, that bloom in early-late February

While this might not be true in it’s native Asia, here in Colorado Siberian elms have another distinctive pattern - they tend to break easily. Not usually from wind storms, but more usually from snowfall, especially when they still have some leaves on them in the later fall/early winter.

My uncorroborated theory is that as natives to parts of Asia that don’t commonly have much in the way of snowfall, the combination of wind and water weight cause the less flexible upper branches to break.

This pattern is relevant to identification especially when trying to find these trees from a distance. Lookout on a Southwest landscape spring-Fall, and if you see a tree with broken/dead upper branches, chances are good that you're looking at a Siberian elm.

Woo baby, look at those exerted stamens!! (that’s the dark purple parts, wind pollinating with all their might). Also note the white fuzzy pistils coming up in the center of the inflorescense.

**Like many tree flowers, those of Ulmus are frequently overlooked.**

The flowers of this tree are perfect both botanically speaking (they have both pollen-bearing and seed-bearing parts), as well as aesthetically. The parts range from dark, dark purple, to pink, to bright green in color. incidentally, the pistils (the seed-bearing parts) upon close examination look like perfect little cream-white mustachios,

Straight outta Hades with those colors, I see these flowers and those of the Ash tree as harbingers that the back of winter has been broken, and spring greens are not far away.

One last note on Siberian Elms – They are tough as @#$%.

No, really. You have no idea. They are native to and are the dominant tree species of the Gobi Desert, one of the largest deserts in Asia, with an annual rainfall of 7 inches, and sometimes no precipitation at all. Hence their comfort with the arid American West. They eat sidewalks for breakfast, busting up through soil so compacted and dry no one else will grow there. They are highly resistant to Dutch Elm disease, the sac fungi that pushed our own American Elms to extinction (and is still having a hugely detrimental effect on our native Slippery Elms). Say what you will about invasive species. This medicine is abundant, gentle, but effective. And baring something profoundly cataclysmic, this is a tree that’s not going anywhere.

Siberian Elm: gentle medicine, tough as $#@%