Frost Injury to Flowers. 



323 



Kig. r>t. A strawberry 

 nnbbin, due to frost. 



berry patch is often sufficient to avert injury. The 

 pistils seem to suffer first. A strawberry nubbin is 

 shown in Fig. 54. The top of the berry (or the bot- 

 tom, as it hangs) is flattened and 

 deformed. This is generally due 

 to the freezing of the upper pis- 

 tils in the flower, as it stood erect. 

 Nubbins are sometimes the result 

 of imperfect pollination, but in 

 such cases the deformity is more 

 apt to be upon the sides than upon the top, for 

 the top pistils are the ones which are very likely to 

 be fertilized by insects. 



A similar case is reported upon blackberries at 

 Cornell.* "The only serious ac- 

 cident which is known to injure 

 the blackberry crop in this state 

 is frost ; and in most cases the 

 injury is unavoidable, even though 

 the grower has warning of its 

 approach. In the six crops which 

 we have grown in our patches 

 here, only this year have we suf 

 ered from frost, and even this 

 year, when the cold wave was 

 unusually late and severe, only 

 the lowest places suffered seri- 

 ously. Drawings of blackberry flowers were made 

 upon the spot, two or three days after the frost, and 



Fig. 55. Blackberry flower: 

 full size. 



'Bull. 99, Cornell Exp. Sta. 1895. 



