NOTES ON HOAR FROST. 



121 



Scientific Committee last month. Mr. S. N. Marshall, of The 

 Elms, West Lynn, informed me that branches were breaking off 

 the trees in and around his garden all Sunday. The trees which 

 suffered most with him were Black Poplars ; to such an extent 

 did this occur that nearly a waggon-load of branches had to be 

 cleared up on Monday. The branches were bent down so that 

 they almost touched the ground, and gave way from time to time 

 during Sunday up to 3 p.m. So remarkable was the sight that 

 he and the members of his family watched the trees break during 

 the morning, and remarked " There goes another branch " as each 

 successive bough gave way under the weight of the hoar-frost. 



Mr. Herbert G. Ward observed on Sunday morning the 

 remarkable manner in which the Poplar arms were bowed down 

 by the weight of the rime and the numerous arms which were 

 broken off by it. 



I would only add — the manner in which the branches broke 

 off, but remained attached to the trees, seems to be a distinctive 

 feature of rime-injuries. This does not apply to the Willows and 

 Poplars, the vast majority of whose branches fell to the ground, 

 but to the smaller branches of the Elms, Birches, and especially 

 of the Oaks. It was a remarkable sight to observe the broken 

 but still pendent branches of the Oak-trees upon the Hillington 

 Koad.* For about a mile the trees on both sides of the road had 

 one or more broken branches hanging on them for some weeks 

 after the rime. These branches were not large ones, but they 

 were all on the south side of the trees, the direction in which, it 

 will be remembered, the hoar-frost crystals pointed. 



To see an Oak-tree with two or three small boughs broken 

 but still attached is presumptive evidence that the injury has 

 resulted from rime, for it is a rare thing for wind to break off the 

 smaller branches at all, and if it is done the branch is generally 

 blown quite off. 



* Many of the broken branches still remain attached to these Oak-trees 

 on the Hillington Road, January 1891.— C. B. P. 



