167 



Penfound and Mackaness, in the Spring 1940 issue of the 

 Louisiana Conservation Review, discussed the damage to exotic 

 woody plants in and around New Orleans by the freezing weather 

 of late January, and gave long lists of species moderately or 

 severely injured, with half-tone illustrations of some of them after 

 the freeze. The lowest temperature of that month in New Orleans 

 was 20° F., on the 19th (several days before the zero weather in 

 Tuscaloosa), but the monthly average was nearly as low as in 

 Tuscaloosa, namely, 34.9°, or 20° below normal. Although the cold 

 was not nearly as extreme in New Orleans, it did much more dam- 

 age there than in Tuscaloosa, on account of the large number of 

 semi-tropical plants cultivated there that can stand very little frost. 



The principal effect of the late January cold on native plants 

 in and around Tuscaloosa was to delay the bloopning of Alnus and 

 Uhnus about a month, and of the oaks about two weeks. This had 

 a curious effect on Quercus laurijolia, which is fairly common on 

 sandy banks of streams in the southern half of Alabama, and is 

 also cultivated for shade. It is essentially evergreen, but usually 

 drops most of its old leaves about the time its flowers and new leaves 

 appear, in March. But in 1940 the old leaves dropped at about the 

 usual time, and the new foliage was delayed by the cold, so that the 

 tree looked surprisingly bare for a time.^ 



Cultivated plants in Tuscaloosa suffered more, for some people 

 are always trying to cultivate tender plants as far north as possible, 

 and severe winters naturally give them a setback. I made no careful 

 notes at the time, but the following observations were jotted down 

 a few weeks later, and pertain mostly to the University campus. 

 Alenrites (tung oil tree) and Pittosp07'um Tobira seem to have 

 been killed completely. Cinnainomuni Camphora, Feijoa SeUowiana 

 (a small Myrtaceous tree from South America), Millettia reticulata 

 (an evergreen leguminous vine from eastern Asia), and one or 

 more species of Ligustniui were killed to the ground, and did not 

 recover sufficiently to bloom that year. Eriobotrya Japonica 



■'- Spring was late here in 1941 also, not because of any extreme cold, but 

 on account of prolonged cool weather ; and the oaks were again about two 

 weeks late in blooming. But it seems that the leaves of Quercus lauri folia 

 which were two weeks late in starting in 1940 hung on for a full year anyway, 

 so that they lasted until flowering time in 1941. This point will be discussed 

 more farther on. 



