The South Australian Naturalist. 41 



Tlie December number of the ''Australian Forestry 

 Journal' ' eontains a letter from a Paris architect (Monsieur 

 Duillard) to Mr. J. H. Maiden, Director of the Botanic Gardens 

 in Sydney and Government Botanist of N.S.W. The writer says 

 that he has observed in France the stems of oaks, chestnuts, 

 apple trees, and olive trees have a corkscrew twist, especially 

 when the trees are getting old, and that the twist in these trees 

 always goes up to the right of the eye of the observer. The 

 writer further states that he has never seen a twist in the 

 opposite direction. On the contrary, he goes on to say, in 

 France the pine trees always twist to the left ; he does not know 

 if these trees grow in Australia, but if so he wishes to know if 

 they twist in the same direction as in France. 



In travelling by car through the sheaoak country of the 

 West Coast some time ago, I endeavoured to collect some data 

 on this subject. As the car sped along I was able to distinguish 

 the twist of the trees and it was also quite easy to pick out the 

 golden-tufted pollen-bearing (male) trees from the pistillate 

 cone-bearing ones. 



I divided them into four classes, distinguishing those in 

 which the apparent twist was "with the sun" in Australia (i.e., 

 rising from East to the North and round to the West and South 

 — a left-handed spiral) from those twisting in the opposite 

 direction. 



Each class was subdivided according to the sex of the tree, 

 whether pollen-bearing or cone-bearing. Some of the figures 

 obtained are appended : — 



(a) Staminate : 



With the sun 211 



Against the sun 215 



(b) Pistillate: 



With the sun 186 



Against the sun 167 



The numbers seem to show that the direction of the twist 

 in the case of the sheaoak is a matter of even chance, the differ- 

 ences being less than the limits of error of observation. Pos- 

 sibly some botanically interested members may be able to throw 

 some light upon this interesting point. 



