

286 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



IV. Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



1. On Certain Frozen Leaves; by J. Gorgas, (communicated to 

 the Wilmington Botanical Society and sent for publication to this Jour- 

 nal.) — During the recent cold weather (April 15th and 16th, 1849), the 

 leaves of the Buxus sempervirens, (tall box,) common in cultivation, 

 the flowers having mostly fallen and the fruit beginning to form at the 

 time, exhibited some unusual appearances. The leaves of this plant 

 are of a peculiar structure, and have what may be termed a lining so 

 entirely free from the upper blade, except on the edges, that when the 

 edges, forming the suture, are pared off, the two laminae fall apart with- 

 out the use of any mechanical means to separate them. The sutures as 

 well as both blades of the leaf proved upon experiment to be entirely 

 impervious to water. On the mornings of both the days above mention- 

 ed, the leaves were found to be very much distended by the presence of 

 some hard substance between the upper and lower blades, and upon 

 paring away the edges of the leaf the blades separated, disclosing a 

 firm piece of clear ice, entirely free from discoloration, of the shape 

 and size of a large seed of the common pumpkin, and in the larger 

 leaves full one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, swelling them in some 

 instances almost to bursting. Upon an examination at 9 o'clock A. m., 

 these pieces of ice were found to have disappeared from the leaves on 

 the sunny side of the tree, remaining however in those on the shady 

 side. At 12 o'clock, all had disappeared, the leaves having assumed 

 the natural shape without apparent detriment, from having been sub- 

 jected to an ordeal so unusual and severe ; nor was any moisture appar- 

 ent in the leaves either at this time or on the evening of the first day 

 when a reexamination was made. The lumps of ice were much larger 

 on the second and colder morning than on the preceding one, and 

 might have burst the leaves had it been still colder. A thermometer 

 hanging in a piazza adjoining the garden in Wilmington, Del., where 

 the tree was situated, indicated at sunrise on the morning of the 15th, 

 32°, and on that of the 16th, 30°, but the mercury was much lower in 

 some situations in the surrounding country, even as low as 22°, it W 

 said, in some places near Wilmington. After making these statements 

 the author enquires, whence came in a few hours a quantity of liquid 

 sufficient to form in the leaves masses of ice comparatively so large ? 

 and how could it so completely disappear again in a few hours more? 

 the leaf being, as he concludes, so firm and compact and the edges of 

 its two laminae so completely joined as seemingly to preclude the possi- 

 bility of absorption of the liquid from the atmosphere as well as the 

 evaporation of the melting ice, and he supposes that for some purpose 

 necessary to the well being of the plant, at a time so trying, the sap is 

 rapidly forced into the leaf and there congealed, to be as rapidly with- 

 drawn when melted by a milder atmosphere which renders its presence 

 in the leaf unnecessary. Another member of the society has suggested 

 as an explanation of the facts, that probably this superabundant sap was 

 forced into the leaves by the congelation and consequent expansion of 

 a portion of that in the stem, into which it would of course be reabsorb- 

 ed as soon as both portions reassumed the liquid state. It has been 



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