Ulmus minor 'Monumentalis'

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Monumentalis', or tomb elm (Grabmal-Rüster), was raised as a sucker of U. suberosa by Sebastian Rinz, the city gardener of Frankfurt, before 1855 and listed by the Jacob-Makoy nursery of Liège in their 1861 catalogue as Ulmus monumentalis Rinz, "a new variety". Kirchner (1864) described it (as U. campestris var. monumentalis Rinz, 'Pyramid Field Elm'), confirming that it had only recently been propagated by Rinz and established in the nursery. It was distributed from the 1880s by the Baudriller nursery, Angers, by the Späth nursery, Berlin, and by Smith's of Worcester, as U. campestris monumentalis Rinz., appearing separately in their catalogues from U. minor 'Sarniensis', the Guernsey or Wheatley Elm, with which, according to Henry (1913), it was early confused on the continent. 'Sarniensis' is known as monumentaaliep [:monumental elm] in The Netherlands. Like Henry, Springer (1932) had stressed that the Dutch monumentaaliep was "not the actual monumentaaliep (U. glabra Mill var. monumentalis Rinz) but U. glabra Mill. var. Wheatleyi Sim. Louis", and that it "should be renamed U. glabra Mill. var. monumentalis Hort. (non Rinz)". By the late 20th century, however, Rinz's 'Monumentalis' had been all but forgotten, Krüssmann (1984), for example, giving 'Monumentalis' as a synonym of 'Sarniensis'.

Rinz gave his tree the name 'Monumentalis' for its columnar form, and, according to Beissner (1889), because the parent tree stood near the Monument of the Landgrave of Hesse (Hessenmonument) on the former glacis, which is now located in the city at Frankfurt. The German name 'Tomb Elm' may have arisen from the tree's similarity in form to cypress, a burial-ground tree in parts of Europe.