‘““WITCHES’ BROOMS” ON BRITISH WILLOWS 101 
a sixty miles from London. Fro willow at this s place Mr. 
Walter Fox has sent me a portion of a@ gall need appears td be 
of the kind under consideration; but the fragment is so small 
that it is difficult to be certain. Assuming that it is so, Castle 
Hedingham is, so far as I k know, the only place in Britain, outside 
rapidly re widely. 
nother curious hades in connection with the spread of the 
gall is its sudden appearance in great abundance on all the willows 
in any one locality. Of ses A have heard from various ei teba rs. 
N stontion such a phenomenon has ‘attracted a good deal of 
“= brooms without understanding their nature. ee to 
r. Hugh Boyd Watt, the brooms first appeared at Highgate in 
1911 and at Hampstead i in 1912.4 The Sarre summer (1913) 
was that in which they were first seen at many other places. 
This was the case at Leytonsto:e, as Miss Lister informs me, and 
in Red Lion Square, as the cus‘odian tells me. As to the trees 
round the station at ‘Eltham, Kent, the station-master informs me 
that they also were first affected in 1913. He tells me, too, that, 
since the leaves fell in the following autumn, many passengers 
» “Oh! are they 2 nests, then?” This well illustrates the 
= and abundance of the alls there. The s already 
mentioned at Hornchurch first became affected in the umes of 
pais a fact for which Mr. Walter Fox can vouch. 
o the species of willow on which the gall appears, I can 
ig say "that I believe this is eT some form of Salix fragilis, 
“Open-bark,” “ Crack,” or ong” Willow. The British 
veillowis form, however, so highly- stitial a group that one Soin 
before speaking confidently. Mr. Worsdell believes that 
Since the foregoing was put into type: I have heard of the appearance of 
the gall in several fresh localities. Mr. Harold J. Burkill saw it, in March 1907, 
at Woodford Green and between Woodford and Snares provi Mr. Percy 
Thompson saw it in eparg Wood, Epping Forest, in 1907, and says that it 
has since become frequen t throughout the district. It seems probable, indeed, 
that this district was that in which the gall first appeared in Bri ritain, in either 
1906 or r. Dennis saw it in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, in 1913; i 
regs cdene Bare iS 1914; and on Streatham Common (a single broom only) 
in the ilbe’ Cooke, of Wanstead, writes me that, 
25th Denar, 1911, he saw the gall o n trees near : ; also that 
since that date, his cousin, Mr. 00k son of the late Dr. M. C. Cooke), 
has seen it at Gerrard’s Cross, Bucks, as we. a Wood Green 
Mr. Burk ,in January and March 1915, at vari ] Ha . 
smith Bridge, Barnes, and Kew Bridge. These observations extend the area of 
infection not ‘only to the district immediately west of London Pemay Be which I 
ad previously no records), but also to the West of England. be that 
— 
t Trans. s. Roy. Soot. Arboricultural Soc., xxix. p. 115 (1915). 
