Once a very popular and long-lived (300+ years) shade and street tree, American Elm suffered a dramatic decline in the 1950's with the infestation of Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by a bark beetle. The wood of American Elm is very hard and was a valuable timber tree used for lumber, furniture and veneer. The Indians once made canoes out of American Elm trunks, and early settlers would steam the wood so it could be bent to make barrels and wheel hoops. It was also used for the rockers on rocking chairs.

Ulmus davidiana or David Elm is a deciduous tree widely distributed across China, Mongolia, Korea, Siberia and Japan, where it is found on wetlands along streams at elevations of between 2000 m and 2300 m. It grows to a maximum height of 15 m, with a slender trunk of no more than 0.3 m d.b.h. (diameter at breast height); the bark is longitudinally fissured. The leaves are obovate to obovate-elliptic < 10 cm x < 5 cm, with a rough upper surface. The wind-pollinated petal-less flowers are produced on second-year shoots in spring, followed by samarae that are obovate < 19 mm long by < 14 mm wide.

Evaluated with other Chinese elms at the Morton Arboretum, Illinois it was found to have a good resistance to Dutch elm disease, elm leaf beetle, and elm yellows. It was also considered to have a remarkable resemblance to the American Elm U. americana in all but ultimate size. -- adapted from Wikipedia