170 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



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For several weeks after this there was little or no improve- 

 ment in the weather ; it may even be said to have got worse, 

 considering the advanced time of the year, till it culminated in a 

 severe frost between the night of Tuesday, the 16th, and the 

 morning of Wednesday, the 17th May, when the thermometer 

 in the Queen's Park registered fully 7° of frost. Mr Graham, 

 gardener to Sir George Campbell, informed me that it indicated 

 nearly 8° at Garscube. The effect of so severe a frost at such a 

 season, accompanied as it was by a keen cutting wind, was very 

 disastrous to veo-etation. 



The following remarks are the result of observations noted at 

 the time, and are confined entirely to the effect the frost had on 

 the various trees and shrubs in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, 

 particularly towards the south, as it is in that direction my steps 

 most frequently turn when I take a walk. I never before gave 

 so much attention to the wonderful power that some trees more 

 than others apparently possess of resisting frost, and those not 

 always the species that one would naturally think the hardiest, 

 and best fitted for enduring the cold ; for native trees in many 

 cases suffered far more than exotics. The scarcity of fruit of all 

 kinds during the past season tells its own tale as to the effect pro- 

 duced on the orchards and gardens around Glasgow. 



The first thing that attracted my attention was the great amount 

 of injury sustained by some of the commonest, and what I had 

 always looked upon as the hardiest of our wild plants. Common 

 Comfrey {Sym]jhytum officinale), and the Butter-Burr {Petasifes 

 vulgaris), two of the largest and coarsest of our native weeds, were 

 both much hurt. The leaves of the Comfrey, in particular, were 

 rendered so brown that they might have passed for tobacco, to 

 which they bear a considerable resemblance, both in size and 

 shape. I was likewise much astonished at the effect that had 

 been produced on our two commonest species of dock, both of 

 which are abundant by every wayside. The Broad-leaved Dock 

 (Rumex ohkisifolius) was a good deal injured in places where much 

 exposed; while the Curled-leaved Dock (E. crisjms), growing side 

 by side with it, had passed through the ordeal, to all appearance, 

 scatheless. What can be in the nature of these two docks that 

 they should differ thus in their capacity of enduring cold, is more 

 than I can tell, or even imagine. 



The Common Hawthorn {Crataegus oxijacantha) had its leaves a 



