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RHODODENDRONS AT DAWYCK STOBO, TWEED-DALE. 
The extraordinarily severe early frost of 15th November last is rather too 
recent to judge of its full effects on rhododendrons here. The temperature fell 
for one night to 4° below zero, and only a few miles further north in this County 
the thermometer actually registered 41 degrees of frost. Temperatures of 2° 
below zero are almost of annual occurrence with us, but never before have I 
heard of such a frost so early in the winter. 
The Chinese rhododendrons, which have been growing here for some years, 
are for the most part the result of Wilson’s Expeditions for Messrs. Veitch and 
the Arnold Arboretum, and a great many of them I owe to the generosity of 
Professor Sargent. 
Two years ago I enumerated in a note for the Society (Vol. 1, page 152), most 
of the rhododendrons here that had succumbed to severe frosts, or had been 
injured, or had shown no ill effects at all. Of the survivors then I have lost no 
more, and in spite of the lesson I had already learned, I have attempted again 
to establish a good many of those that had previously failed. I have also 
planted many more species which two years ago I did not have. 
It may be of some interest to Members to learn which have consistently 
shown perfect hardihood, and which find this climate too much for them. 
I am quite certain that any rhododendron, hardy here, can be grown success¬ 
fully anywhere in the British Isles, below 1,200 feet altitude. A comparison of 
the following list with the previous one will show that several which had 
previously been injured or killed outright are now re-established and apparently 
quite hardy, and I am agreeably surprised to find how many of the more recently 
introduced species are equally hardy. 
The following plants have been killed by the November frost; — R. crassum, 
ZALEUCUM, Bailey’s arboreum, Fordii, neriiflorum, Delavayi, Hunne- 
WELLiANUM, while the following had their foliage browned, but I expect will 
quite recover: — R. cyanocarpum, Wasonii, callimorphum, Hanceanum, 
FLORiBUNDUM (two plants out of five much injured), Forrest’s lacteum. 
The buds of these next have been frozen but the foliage does not seem to 
have much suffered :—R. yanthinum, plebeium, habrotrichum, villosum, 
FULVUM (one plant badly injured, the other two do not seem to have suffered). 
Those that seem to be nowise the worse are : — R. fictolacteum, galacteum 
(Wilson’s lacteum), niphargum, Watsonii, Forrest 5870 (Traillianum ?), 
LONGESQUAMATUM, FaBERI, TRICHOCLADUM, ARGYROPHYLLUM, RHANTUM, 
SouLiEi, INSIGNE, Weldianum, Davidii (flower buds quite uninjured), oreodoxa 
( flower buds quite uninjured), rubiginosum, Prattii, oleifolium, hypo- 
GLAUCUM (but R. GL.\ucuM had its leaves browned), Rirei, Prze;walskii, 
PACHYTRiCHUM, STRiGiLLOSUM, OREOTREPHES, (flower buds uninjured on the old 
wood but young shoots have suffered), taliense, Wiltonii, Traillianum, 
Houlstonii, Davidsonianum, Williamsianum. 
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