Very pleased to identify a Zelkova at last, although I do wonder whether I have seen leaves from this tree before, but failed to give it any name at all in the past!
Once I spotted the correct genus in the Collins guide, after spending a long time determined to fit these leaves into the genus Nothofagus, I was absolutely delighted to head almost straight away towards Zelkova serrata. Several pointers - the leaves hanging DOWN, which I had thought might be due to the drought or time of year, but is actually a characteristic of the species, and the number of vein pairs - 12 on the leaves I looked at fitting in with the stated 9 - 13.
The upper surface of the leaf is "micro-rough", even finer than an Elm might be. The underside is contrastingly glabrous. The toothing on the leaves didn't immediately seem to fit the book descriptions exactly, but seems to fit a range of the images on the internet very closely. The leaf size is given as 6 - 12 cm, and I thought these were at or just over the top of this range.
The tree is said to be quite beautiful when the leaves turn. I look forward to the stated orange colours this autumn!
Zelkova serrata, the Keaki (or Keyaki), is from Japan, China and Korea. It was often grown in Japan for timber, ornament and bonsai. A spreading habit is often referred to, very obvious in these three trees. The spreading habit in these trees might help support the theory that these trees might be old enough to have been grown from early batches of Japanese seed brought to the UK in the early 1860s.
The bark is grey, smooth and very Beech-like, to my eyes indeed. There is no sign as yet of any bark flaking off to reveal orange patches beneath in this tree - except the split on the right. There were plenty of flakes with underlying dark orange on the right-hand tree which was examined the following day, photo not yet available.
The twigs are slender with small, dark conical buds held in a zigzag pattern on the twigs, each bud pointing outward at a fairly characteristic 45 degrees. The pattern, in hindsight, is really very elm-like, as in the photo taken from the bench underneath the tree's canopy.
The species is said to be pollution-resistant (not sure why this isn't a moveable feast, as pollutants change over time).
The yellow-green flowers occur in tight groups, perhaps high in the canopy and the fruits are small, pea-green drupes. An American source has the fruit as a small triangular drupe, pea green turning brown, sub-sessile, 2.5 cm long and 2.5-3.5 mm in diameter with the surface covered by an
irregular network of low ridges.
The currently recognised county champion for girth and height is 13 m high with a girth measured at 240 cm at 1.1 m, in Cherry Ingram's old garden at the Grange, Biddenden. The notes on the Tree Register suggest that this might have been grown from Japanese seed. The first tree I measured at Camer Park, the first of three, has a greater girth than that, 240 cm, measured at 75 cm height, and the second, with a much more muscly trunk, measured at 261 cm, measured at height.
The timber is very valuable as it is fine-grained and rot-resistant. It is much used in high quality furniture, construction and ship-building. It is also traditionally used in the making of the Japanese drums called Daiko, as seen in this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HL5wYqAbU. The Wikipedia page on Daiko is also exceptionally good.
The Zelkovas are in the Elm family and used to be spread across the north Temperate zone. Zelkovas differ from Elms in that the seeds lack a wing, and the bases of the leaves are much more symmetrical. A Zelkova that looks a little like Z. serrata is in the North American fossil record from the Eocene. However, Zelkovas are thought to have died out in North America in the Tertiary period.
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