SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, OCTOBER 15. 
cxxx\ii 
The wood is perfectly sound, and shows no signs of charring. 
The tree was about 30 feet in height. 
Castanea vesca, Female rejjlacing Male Flowers. — Mr. 
Henslow exhibited specimens of this exchange of sex, as being 
particularly abundant on a Chestnut tree this season ; a probable 
result of the climate, as it is well known that external conditions 
often decide which sex shall predominate when a plant is 
naturally bisexual. He alluded to experiments by Mr. Meehan, 
Mr. Hoffman, and himself, in which seeds of bisexual plants 
gave rise to various proportions of males and females, according 
as they are sown very thickly or thinly. 
Scientific Committee, October 15, 1895. 
Dr. M. T. Masters, F.R.S., in the Chair. 
Injury to Foliage by WincL—Mic. Ch. Plowright, of Lynn, 
sent photographs showing how trees were damaged on the north 
sides by a cold wind on May 16, with the following communica- 
tion : — " After a spell of fine weather, lasting until May 14, we 
began to think our fruit crop was safe for the year, but on the 
15th the temperature fell, and on the 16th we had a gale from 
the north, accompanied by one or two hail showers. The effect 
was seen in a Hawthorn hedge facing north and south, for the 
foliage was shrivelled up on the north side, where it is dead, but 
remained bright green on the south side. Similarly three or four 
Pear trees showed a remarkable appearance ; the north side was 
quite black, not a leaf had escaped, while the opposite side did 
not seem to have suffered at all. A row of Elms showed graphi- 
cally which way the wind had blown, and some fine old Beeches 
assumed on their north side quite an autumnal hue. The Horse 
Chestnuts, from the size of their leaves, afforded very distinctive 
evidence of the injury they sustained, the foliage having turned 
a bright red. The above effects were general in this part of 
Norfolk ; indeed, no tree at all exposed seems to have escaped. 
One of the most striking incidents is the Spruce Fir ; at East 
Walton there is a row of these trees, whose young shoots have 
been killed by the cold wind on the north side, and hang like 
brown plumes at the end of the branches." Mr. Plowright does 
