Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. VI 
NO. I 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. MAY 6. 1920 
Effects of the Severe Winter. The winter of 1919-20, although less 
destructive to plants in the neighborhood of Boston than that of 1917-18, 
has been exceptionally severe. Once in December, before the ground 
was protected by snow, the thermometer at the Arboretum fell to 12° 
below zero; later heavy and numerous falls of snow buried and pro- 
tected plants less than three or four feet high. Unfortunately the snow 
rested on a layer of ice which did not thaw until the disappearance of 
the snow at the end of March. This ice layer injured small plants, 
and this, or the cold nights in December, killed in the Nursery the 
seedling plants of Juniperus Pinchotii. This native of the Panhandle 
region of northwestern Texas is a handsome tree with bright red fruit. 
Recently introduced into gardens by the Arboretum, it was hoped that 
a tree which grows naturally in a region of excessive winter cold would 
thrive in New England. The heavy snow and high winds have broken 
the branches of several trees and shrubs, and the destruction of the 
fine species of the dwarf form of the Norway Maple {Acer platanoides 
var. glohosum) by the weight of the snow on the branches is a serious 
loss. This plant was imported from Germany in 1888 and for several 
years has been an object of interest and curiosity to visitors to the 
Arboretum, especially those who like to study plants of abnormal growth; 
and its portrait has been thrown on the screen at many popular lec- 
tures on the Arboretum and its plants. Field mice, which have de- 
stroyed during the winter by girdling thousands of young trees in New 
England orchards and nurseries, have done comparatively little damage 
in the Arboretum. A number of shrubs have lost branches; a ring of 
bark has been entirely removed from the stem of one of the three 
plants of a Chinese Box Elder, Acer griseum, and this plant will 
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