244 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



in the hastening of flowering and fruitification. This was noted especially 

 with various herbaceous plants which apparently completed their summer 

 activities several days or weeks earlier than usual. Early leaf maturity 

 and leaf fall was common among native and exotic forest trees. In some 

 cases almost all of the leaves had fallen by the end of July, while in 

 nearly all of our trees noticeable early leaf fall was characteristic. 

 Thus especially conspicuous in this regard in Lincoln were the hack- 

 berry, Celtis occidentalis; elm, Ulmus americana; and Carolina poplar, 

 Populus. These trees also showed great variations in the condition of 

 their leaves, some individuals being nearly leafless at the same time 

 (August) that others were quite normal. Many gradations occurred be- 

 tween these two extremes. The ash, Fraxinus lanceolata, was apparently 

 affected to the least degree of all of our commoner three species. Street 

 trees in general suffered greatly, and many such individuals perished 

 during the summer. One man, the owner of very attractive home and 

 grounds in another city of the state, told me that he had kept three 

 lines of hose constantly pouring water into the ground about his trees 

 throughout the summer, and that even then some of the trees were 

 affected by the dry weather. 



Toward the close of the summer it was noted that a number of the 

 trees that had lost practically all of their earlier leaves had developed 

 many new bright green leaves which, how^ever, were much smaller than 

 the typical leaves of the species. The most conspicuous examples of 

 this phenomena occurred in the hackberry and in the Kentucky coffee 

 tree, Gynmocladus dioica. Some trees of the former species put forth 

 practically a full number of new leaves, but the small size of the late 

 leaves made such trees rather noticeable. Many clusters of short com- 

 pound leaves with very small leaflets appeared upon the almost bare 

 club-like branches of the coffee tree. In this case the new leaves came 

 from dominant buds situated at some distance below the shoot apices. 



Native woods along the streams of the eastern part of Nebraska were 

 unusually dry and barren. The usual mesophytic undergrowth was 

 greatly reduced in volume, and few species of the usual summer and 

 early autumn fungi were to be seen. The rich soil of the more open 

 parts of such woods became as dry and powdery as that of the fields, 

 and some of the moisture-demanding plants of such habitats dried up 

 and disappeared long before the usual time. Many of the spring-fed 

 streams of the woodlands disappeared completely and the ravines became 

 desiccated to a very unusual degree. 



Native pastures suffered greatly, and after July 15 little or nothing 

 of forage value was to be found in such places. The ground became 

 very dry, and in some places broke into great blocks of extremely hard 

 soil with prominent fissures between the solid masses of soil. 



The dryness of native vegetation and fields along the railroads re- 

 sulted in the starting of an unusual number of fires by sparks from 

 passing locomotives. Such blazes destroyed considerable grain in the 

 shock or stack, and in at least one case resulted in the death of a farmer 



