TREES & LIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1939, Page 6

TREES & LIGHTS

PHENOMENON ON NORTHERN APPROACH. ORIENTAL PLANES RETAIN THEIR LEAVES. An unusual phenomenon is to be seen on the northern approach where the Oriental plane trees, growing beneath the mercury vapour lamps, still retain their foliage, whereas other trees of the same kind, growing away from the lights, have lost all their leaves. There seems to be little doubt that the lights are responsible for the retention of the foliage. “I can’t make it out at all,” said Mr L. Robinson this morning, when the matter was referred to him. He stated that it appeared as if the lights were keeping the sap up in the trees. These vapour lights, he pointed out. were supposed to be as near as possible to daylight and no doubt they would generate sufficient heat to keep off any frost. In England and on the Continent, electric lights were used in glasshouses to give a greater period of light, so as to get increased growth in seedlings. All the same, as far as the plane trees were concerned, it was rather strange for a plant that normally had a sleeping period to keep growing.