Average of 15 years, 1906-20. 1921. 
Inches. Number of days. | Inches. Number of days. 
Jan. - 2-08 13 2-31 19 
Feb. - 1-57 15 0-25 2 
March - 2-03 16 1-22 ii 
April - 1:81 12 1-02 8 
May = E77 il 1-09 12 
June - 2-18 11 0-24 3 
July - 2-45 13 0-10 4 
Aug. - 2:26 14 1-33 10 
Sept. 1-84 11 1-62 6 
Oct. - 2-44 14 0-48 6 
Nov. . 2-13 13 1-80 10 
Dec. - 2-93 14 1-00 11 
Total 25-47 157 12°46 102 
TREES AND SHRUBS. 
Amongst evergreens nothing withstood the drought better 
than hollies, in fact scarcely a single tree has shown any signs 
of suffering. Yews also have got through very well but some 
have become thin in foliage. Of all evergreens rhododendrons 
suffered the worst. Even big bushes of common &. ponticum, 
planted at least fifty years ago, are quite dead in places where 
they could not be artificially eter Although the plants in 
the Rhododendron Dell have made short growths and smaller 
leaves than usual, they have survived the ordeal very well. 
But it was only by watering that they were kept alive. It took 
the whole time of one man the summer through to keep them 
going. They were watered in turn, but often enough were 
flagging at one end of the Dell before he had got through to the 
other. Mountain top rhododendrons with ~_ leaves such as 
yunnanense, micranthum, yanthinum, etc., have, as one would 
expect, stood the heat and dryness much better nan the bigger- 
leaved species found in woodland. 
Heaths have suffered badly on the whole but there are 
exceptions. One can understand native and other species from 
cool elevations suffering, but it might have been thought that 
Erica mediterranea from the hot hills of Spain and 8S. W. France 
would have stood the heat well, but more than half of the large 
groups growing at Kew have been killed outright and most of 
them injured. The useful hybrid from HE. mediterranea we call 
darleyensis has suffered equally badly and breadths planted 
twenty years ago have had to be dug up. But ZL. lusitanica, 
E. Veitchii and especially H. arborea alpina have not been hurt. 
Another ericaceous plant for which the heat and drought have 
