824 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 



hackberry, Celtis occidenialis ; elm, Ulmus 

 americana; and Carolina poplar, Populus. 

 These trees also showed great variations in the 

 condition of their leaves, some individuals 

 being nearly leafless at the same time (August) 

 that others were quite normal. Many grada- 

 tions occurred between these two extremes. 

 The ash, Fraxinus lanceolata, was apparently 

 affected to the least degree of all of our com- 

 moner tree species. Street trees in general 

 suffered greatly and many such individuals 

 perished during the summer. One man, the 

 owner of a very attractive home and grounds in 

 another city of the state, told me that he had 

 kept three lines of hose constantly pouring 

 water into the ground about his trees through- 

 out the summer and that even then some of 

 the trees were affected by the dry weather. 



Toward the close of the summer it was noted 

 that a number of the trees that had lost prac- 

 tically all of their earlier leaves had developed 

 many new bright green leaves, which, however, 

 were much smaller than the typical leaves of 

 the species. The most conspicuous examples 

 of this phenomenon occurred in the hackberry 

 and in the Kentucky coffee tree, Gymnocladus 

 dioica. Some trees of the former species put 

 forth practically a full number of new leaves, 

 but the small size of the late leaves made such 

 trees rather noticeable. Many clusters of short 

 compound leaves with very small leaflets ap- 

 peared upon the almost bare, club-like branches 

 of the coffee tree. In this case the new leaves 

 came from dormant buds situated at some dis- 

 tance below the shoot apices. 



Native woods along the streams of the east- 

 ern part of Nebraska were unusually dry and 

 barren. The usual mesophytic undergrowth 

 ■was greatly reduced in volume and few species 

 of the usual summer and early autumn fungi 

 were to be seen. The rich soil of the more 

 open parts of such woods became as dry and 

 powdery as that of the fields and some of the 

 moisture-demanding plants of such habitats 

 dried up and disappeared long before the usual 

 time. Many of the spring-fed streams of the 

 ■woodlands disappeared completely and the 

 ravines became desiccated to a very unusual 

 degree. 



Native pastures suffered greatly and after 

 July 15 little or nothing of forage value was 

 to be found in such places. The ground be- 

 came very dry and in some places broke into 

 great blocks of extremely hard soil with promi- 

 nent fissures between the solid masses. 



The dryness of native vegetation and fields 

 along the railroads resulted in the starting of 

 an unusual number of fires by sparks from 

 passing locomotives. Such blazes destroyed 

 considerable grain in the shock or stack and in 

 at least one case resulted in the death of a 

 farmer and several of his horses. During a 

 trip across the state early in September it was 

 noted that many fires had been kindled in this 

 manner so that the railroad right-of-way and 

 sometimes for considerable distances on either 

 side the grass or stubble had been destroyed by 

 fire for long distances. Groves of planted trees 

 or rows of trees along the railroad were fre- 

 quently damaged or completely killed. This 

 indirect effect of the drought seemed to be un- 

 usually common in many parts of the droughc- 

 stricken territory. 



As cooler and moister weather succeeded the 

 trying drought numerous cases of renewed 

 activity on the part of vegetation were evi- 

 denced. The most pronounced late season re- 

 action of this sort was observed in the re-green- 

 ing of lavms, pastures and roadsides which had 

 appeared as areas of stubble for so many weeks. 

 The fresh green of early October is most wel- 

 come evidence of the fact that vegetation was 

 not entirely burned out under the protracted 

 desiccation of the long summer weeks. 



Examples of the autumnal flowering of trees 

 have been noted in greater than usual number. 

 That this phenomenon is not induced in all 

 cases by the succession of moist weather after 

 a period of drought (as is commonly supposed) 

 is sho^wn in the case of a cherry tree on the 

 campus of the University of Nebraska. This 

 cherry tree, Prunus padus, came out with its 

 second production of flowers early in Septem- 

 ber before the drought had been " broken." A 

 striking additional peculiarity of the serotinal 

 flowers of this species was seen in the presence 

 of many abnormalities or malformations. 

 Phyllody of various flower parts was especially 

 common. Many of the racemes were in fact 



