THE TREES OF ST. LOUIS AS INFLUENCED BY THE 



TORNADO OF 1896.* 



Hermann von Schrenk. 



The tornado, which swept over the southern part of St. 

 Louis on May 27th, 1896, was one particularly destructive to 

 the trees and vegetation of that section, and in the following 

 an attempt has been made to enumerate some of the phe- 

 nomena which followed the period of destruction. On the 

 morning after the storm many of the immediate injuries to 

 trees were noted. Most of the observations were made in the 

 storm center, which included Lafayette Park and the adjoin- 

 ing streets, and observations which follow are to be taken aa 

 applying to this region. Nortonf has described many of the 

 injuries which the trees suffered, and to these I would add 

 several, necessary to an understanding of the after-effects. 



There was hardly a tree which escaped injury of one kind 

 or another, with the possible exception of several cypresses, 

 Taxodium distichum, which, with their conical forms, yielded 

 to the force of the wind. The maples and elms, as stated by 

 Norton, were in many cases uprooted, and when this took 

 place in the first few moments of the period of greatest wind 

 velocity, the trees were simply turned over, and when straight- 

 ened up some days after, resumed their former growth, and 

 to-day these trees are almost the only normal trees in the 

 Lafayette Park district. By far the larger number lost all 

 their principal branches ; many were reduced to the trunk 

 with perhaps two forks. The ragged ends of such trunks 

 were sawed off, painted and covered with cloth, and then they 

 looked much like very heavily pollarded trees. 



The time at which the injury was done, fell in the period 

 of the tree's greatest activity. The new leaves had not been 



* Presented to The Academy of Science of St. Louis, in preliminary form, 

 December 6, 1897. 



t Norton, J. B. S. Garden & Forest 10: 292. 1897. 



(25) 



