70 THE EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE FROST OF THE 



heavy soil and upon a close, clamp clay subsoil, at an altitude of 

 92 feet above sea-level, hollies, coniferae, and hard-wooded 

 shrubs, includino- even the common double red-fiowerino; thorn, 

 have succumbed to a melancholy extent. Those most seriously 

 iniured otcw in two belts on either side of the main avenue 

 running due north and south, and fully exposed to the sun's rays 

 during day, and to the mists which rise from the valley of the 

 Almond at night, coating them over with hard frozen hoar-frost. 

 The Coniferae, Taxodium semjjervio'ens, Picea cdhertiana, Welling- 

 tonea gigantea, Pinus cxceha, Pinus monticola^ Picea halsamea 

 Cedriis dcodara, Cedrus atlantica, Picea pinsapo, Juniperus re- 

 cnrva, and Araucaria imhricata all suffered most severely in 

 every instance in the terminal shoots and tips of the side 

 branches, some being killed down to the ground entirely, while 

 hollies in everv instance OTowimx alon2:side and amongst the 

 Coniferse, with their tops equally exposed, were killed in the 

 lower branches, and around the lower side branches, from the 

 stem outwards to the very tips, the foliage vv^as killed off, while 

 in every case (and they were many) the tops of the hollies were 

 quite uninjured. The snowfall overlying them could have 

 nothing to do with this anomaly from the shapes and habit and 

 situation of the plants ; but it would appear as if the top-shoots, 

 leaders, and stronc^ side-shoots of the coniferous o^enus had their 

 wood in these points less well ripened, while the hard-wooded 

 genus, being better ri2:)ened at these identical points than in the 

 wood and branches near the roots, escaped, while these latter 

 parts in them suffered. Each holly looked as if its lower half had 

 been burnt round by fire, while the ConiferEe presented exactly 

 the opposite appearance, as if a current of cold frozen air had 

 cut down their tops in some cases to a length of six feet. Many 

 of them so affected have since entirely succumbed, although 

 hopes were in spring entertained that they might recover. All 

 sides of trees and shrubs exposed to the north-west were most 

 severely browned and injured. From that quarter the current 

 of cold air appears to have chiefly prevailed. 



In the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburiih (also a low elevation), 

 Sir Eobert Christison remarked that in June 1880, as in some other 

 places, he had observed in the neighbourhood (in the Cramond 

 district) the terminal twigs of the common birch, on the north 

 and north-east sides of the trees, were killed from the effects of 

 last winter's frost — a circumstance not recorded in previous 

 storms. When his attention was directed to them in June last, 

 many had fallen off, and the ground below the trees was strewn 

 with these relics of the severity of the frost of 1879-80. In the 

 Royal Botanic Garden also some species or varieties of some 

 families have resisted the v/inter's effects better than others of 

 the same genus. Thus the Hungary or Turkey oak is quite 



