May 1891.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



115 



fresh colour. This was particularly true of the little hard 

 knot-like winter buds of Abies Loiviana and A. grandis. The 

 order of movement was as follows : — 



The very late period of No. 8, a robust quick grower, is 

 most remarkable : on the 19 th May the buds were all as 

 hard, small, and brown as in the depth of winter, and on 1st 

 June fully half of the buds were still in that condition, while 

 those that had begun to shoot were only a quarter of an inch 

 long. 



B. Deciduous Trees. — The beginning of movement in 

 these was slow and lingering, and was much more difficult 

 to ascertain with any degree of precision than in the 

 Pinacese. My observations began on the 14th March, 

 but slight, perhaps unappreciable, movement must have 

 begun earlier, as the hawthorn buds had already lost their 

 covers, and the buds of all the trees, except the elms, 

 were greenish at the tips. Many catkins were out on 

 the alder, and the elms were coming into flower. After a 

 cold February an unusually mild rainy March seems to have 

 caused early budding. The following list shows the ap- 

 proximate dates of events from the earliest movement in 

 the buds till the full expansion of the leaves, signifying by 

 this not that they have all attained their full size, but that 

 the tree is substantially clothed with large leaves : — 



