1884.] METEOROLOGY. 133 



Meteorology. 



EUCALYPTS AND OTHER EXOTICS AS OPEN-AIR PLANTS. 



THE island of Arran is now widely known to English as well as 

 Scottish health-seekers as the sanitarium of the Clyde ; but 

 arboriculturists have also noted with great interest the successful 

 experiments of the Rev. David Landsborough of Kilmarnock, in 

 rearing there, in the open air, tree denizens of sunnier climes. The 

 peculiar climatal conditions of the east coast of the isle make the 

 severity of our winters as little felt as in any part of Britain. 

 And consequently, at sites such as Brodick and Corrie, eucalypts, 

 acacias, and tree-ferns attain heights in the open similar to those 

 gained in their native habitats. Mr. Landsborough reported at the 

 November meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, that a 

 Blue Gum (Eucab/ptvs globulus) was now about 30 feet high, with 

 a girth 1 foot 7^ inches thick ; and a White Gum {Emahjjitvft 

 coriacca), the seed of which was planted in the spring of 1879, is 

 now 14 feet 6^ inches in height, with a girth of 4^ inches. Both 

 grow in the open at Lamlash. The mountain White Gum {Eucalyptus 

 Gunnii) has at the same locality grown 3 feet 1 inches in height ; 

 and the Alpine Gum {Eucalyptus alpina) has at Corrie attained a 

 height of 3 feet. As is well known to our readers, similar experi- 

 ments have been made at Colintraive, and other places of the neigh- 

 bouring mainland of the Firth of Clyde, which promised fairly, had 

 the sylvan strangers not been blasted by the hard recurrent frosts 

 so characteristic of our fickle climate. Xotwithstanding such past 

 defeats, Eucalypt-growing is again being attempted at the Rev. Dr. 

 Story's, Roseneath ; Mr. Scoular's, Tighnabruaich ; and at Balinakill, 

 Kintyre. If, as some think, we have gone into a cycle of warm 

 seasons, the young plants may flourish till killed by some hard 

 intervening frosts. The records of the past forbid us to hope that 

 either the Blue or the Almond-leaved Gums shall ever in this 

 country attain their normal heights of 330 feet or 430 feet respec- 

 tively. Be this as it may, Mr. Landsborough states that in Arran 

 during the severe winter of 1879-80, not a leaf of the White Gum 

 was even browned ; while branches from the Arran trees could bear 

 favourable comparison with those exhibited at the Edinburgh 

 Forestry Exhibition from Antibes, in the south-west coast of France. 

 Such strangers as Cordylinc indivisa, 12 feet 10 inches high, 

 and Cordyline Australis, 9 feet 7 inches high, are not in Arran 

 even browned by frost. Neither are the Dicksonias, which flourish 

 here. So do the acacias, though one or two have succumbed. 

 Camellias and myrtles bloom abundantly. 



