2 
{Betula nigra) was serious. It has been necessary to remove entirely 
two large specimens and the others were badly mutilated. The trees 
in the group of Green Ashes {Fraxinus pennsylvanica) suffered almost 
as much as the River Birches although other Ash-trees growing in the 
same general region on the northeastern slope of Bussey Hill escaped 
injury. Although the Elm-trees of eastern Massachusetts were more 
mutilated by this storm than other trees, the Elms in the Arboretum 
escaped serious injury with the exception of the plants of the Asiatic 
Ulmus pumila on Bussey Hill Road above the Lilac Collection. These 
were badly broken, including the fine form of this tree from Turkestan. 
This was one of the rarest and most interesting trees in the Arbore- 
tum. It is not dead and new trees can be propagated from it, but 
twenty or thirty years must pass before the Arboretum can show its 
visitors such a handsome specimen of this tree as the one which was 
injured by the November storm. Hickory-trees, in spite of their strong 
tough branches have been generally much injured in the storm area, 
and in the Arboretum a few trees of the species with slender branch- 
lets, like the Bitternut {Carya cordiformis) and the others with small 
fruit (C. glabra and C. ovalis and its varieties) have lost a great deal 
of wood. Fortunately the Arboretum’s large specimen of the Pecan- 
tree was uninjured. In the Poplar Collection on the southern slope of 
Peter’s Hill the trees of the Siberian Populus laurifolia were badly 
broken, as were the two largest specimens of the Chinese Populus 
Simonii. The trees of Populus Maximowiczii from northeastern Asia 
growing with these species did not lose a twig. This is a matter of 
congratulation for this is one of the handsomest of all Poplar-trees, 
and of the trees with deciduous leaves brought from Asia to North 
America in recent years it is the one which promises the greatest use- 
fulness here. Although the storm brought to the ground many hun- 
dred loads of branches and left few deciduous-leaved trees entirely free 
of injury, the Arboretum as compared with other parts of the state 
has been fortunate; its important collections are generally still in good 
condition and the injuries will soon disappear. 
On the morning of February 17th the thermometer in the Arboretum 
registered 12® below zero. This and the following were the only really 
cold days of the winter and were followed by several weeks of unusu- 
ally mild weather. It is not possible yet to determine the damage 
caused by the low temperature of February. It has evidently injured 
the flower-buds of a number of plants. In Massachusetts orchards the 
buds of Peach-trees appear to have been generally killed. On April 
12 the pink and white-flowered forms of the wild Peach of northern 
China {Prunus Davidiana) were in bloom, although not more than ten 
per cent, of the buds were able to open. The flowering of Forsythias 
will on many plants be again irregular and poor as many flower-buds 
are killed. The north China Rhododendron mucronulatum was first 
raised in the Arboretum in 1882. It is the earliest of the Rhododen- 
drons and Azaleas to flower, and only occasionally in past years have 
the flower-buds been injured. A few of the plants under the shade of 
Pine-trees on the lower side of Azalea Path were covered last week 
with their rose-colored flowers, but on other plants growing near them 
but beyond the shade of the Pines every flower-bud had been killed. 
