280 Scientific Intelligence. 
6. Prof. Braun; ‘ On the oblique direction of the ligneous fibre, 
and the twist of the trunks of trees occasioned thereby ; 2” read before 
the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and published in its Proceedings.— 
This twist of the wood of many trees is a phenomenon well known to 
wood-cuiters, shingle-makers, carpenters, and others, but almost entirely 
neglected by botanists. The distinguished geologist, the late Leopold 
von gate appears to have first directed the attention of scientific men 
to it; and De Candolle, in his ila petea poten (1827) was the first 
fear gers spoke of it. Little has since been done to substantiate or 
elucidate the phenomenon. In the se aeitas before us Prof. Braun 
gives the result of a great many observations made by himself in Ger- 
many, by his brother in France and Spain, and by the writer of this 
notice in the Mississippi Valley. 
trees show this _obliquit of the woody fibre more or less. In 
others both directions occur with about equal frequency ; while in not 
a few no twist is dist inctly observable. Sometimes the same direction 
“Prova in the majority of the species of a ea or even sg a whole 
mily : in other cases 0 opposite directions occur in the same genus oF 
Parity 3 : a it is curious to remark that in some instances per my a 
species of Europe and America twist in opposite directions. In a 
instances the fibre of a young tree is twisted in one direction ; that “ 
the old tree in the opposite direction. 
In speaking of the direction, it is wnecessary to come to an under- 
imaginin pect in = eeuite of. the coil. Thus viewed, the 
vine turns to the /eft, the hop-vine to the right, &c. Linnzus ad 
others, however, have adopted the opposite, or subjective view, and 
regard the bean and other leguminous plants as turning to the right, as 
they appear to an observer standing before the coil. 
The twist of the fibre may be discerned in splitting the wood, or in 
its cracks when the bark 19 gripped off, or in the course of the fissures 
made by lightning. Very often the bark itself, at the ape or super- 
ficial lines of the trunk, indicate the direction of the wood within very 
distinctly. We make a few extracts from 167 species observed. 
in Pinus Strobus, eae Victie. the Tasha of Bara , th ‘eB 
ropean and American Salices, Populus pyramidalis, Conse Fe Florida, 
Liriodendron (in Indiana and Illinois, though in rete specimens 
the twist was me to be the other way; but more observations are 
required), the Peach, Plum, and Cherry trees, aed in the European 
Cercis Siliquastrum, ‘the only Leguminous® tree known to twist to the 
right. The twist to the left hand is the more common: it occurs I 
most Conifera, especially in Juniperus Virginiana, Tavodium dis- 
tichum, sylvestris (of which young trees twist, however, in the 
Opposite direction), Picea excelsa, &c., Betula and Alnus, Osirya "= 
