Stephen Kellert '71PhD, the Tweedy/Ordway Professor of Social Ecology at the environment school, suggests that humans admire the elm for reasons fundamental to our species. “It’s in many ways a savannah-type tree,” says Kellert: elms are similar in shape to the spreading acacias of the African grasslands, where the first hominids evolved. Perhaps, he says, elms remind us, at some deep level, of home.

Yale and New Haven have been planting new varieties of American elm, such as Liberty, and elm hybrids, such as Dynasty and Homestead. All of these possess a measure of resistance to Dutch elm disease. The development of these disease-resistant varieties and better elm management techniques have allowed the city to leaf out once more with its trademark tree. This photograph shows the upper part of the Green along College Street.

Photograph by Jake Wyman