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Lacebark elm

Ulmus parvifolia · Ulmaceae · all Ulmus records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: 1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Global; Ohio / Midwest; Tennessee; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
Landscaping Guidelines to Protect Your Home from Wildfire (SP685) · Official scoped edition
- TN; partial normalized coverage · 2006-10-24
  University of Tennessee Extension SP685 is Tennessee landscape guidance and publishes 78 represented plant owners. Most table rows are a carrier of Virginia Firescapes rather than an independent rating; Tennessee source scope does not change that lineage or establish site suitability.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AR, AZ, CA, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, NC, NJ, NV, OH, OK, PA, VA, WV.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: 11 sourced range or established records; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Lacebark elm (Ulmus parvifolia) — Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
USDA hardiness: Minimum 5b; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~45 ft
Light: Full sun
Water need: moderate
Grows in: AR, AZ, CA, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA +13
Rated in: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Global; Ohio / Midwest; Tennessee +2
Family: Ulmaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

0

exact source areas

Current introduced

10

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

10 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
California (CA)
District of Columbia (DC)
Georgia (GA)
Kentucky (KY)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Virginia (VA)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record ulmus-parvifolia · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Ulmus parvifolia · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record ULPA · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 5b · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -13°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Ulmus parvifolia · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 70997, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

irrigated: Shoot flammability patterns in native and exotic street tree species at the WUI of eastern Australia evidence row

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Shoot flammability patterns in native and exotic street tree species at the WUI of eastern Australia — Fire (Huber-Smith, Morley, Krix, Murray et al.; University of Technology Sydney) · 2023 · original source Primary evidence Lab-tested lineage: uts-murray-tree

“Measured; four flammability-attribute rankings were not concordant” · condition: irrigated

Shoot time-to-flame, flame duration, flaming events, and flame temperature were compared without an overall class.

Listed without a rating (6)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

6 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “time to flaming (s): 191.5” · score 191.5 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17496; Ignitability measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.
- “time to flaming (s): 146” · score 146 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17500; Ignitability measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.
- “time to flaming (s): 98” · score 98 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17507; Ignitability measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.
- “mass loss rate per area (g/m² s): 13.3” · score 13.3 (FLAMITS — mass loss rate per area (g/m² s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17520; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.
- “mass loss rate per area (g/m² s): 25.6” · score 25.6 (FLAMITS — mass loss rate per area (g/m² s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17524; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.
- “mass loss rate per area (g/m² s): 30” · score 30 (FLAMITS — mass loss rate per area (g/m² s))
  
  FLAMITS record 17531; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Lizhong2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Lizhong2007: Lizhong, Y., Zaifu, G., Yupeng, Z., & Weicheng, F. (2007). The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 78, 4045.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Ulmus parvifolia (Lacebark elm). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/ulmus-parvifolia/. Last verified 2026-08-23.