Dispersed Lightning • I am forced to return yet again
to the subject of lightning, in its effect on trees, by a very interesting letter from one of our great gardeners, if greatness in gardening depends on affection for the "green thoughts" engendered by tree and shrub. After a clap and flash that were almost simultaneous, it was seen that a sequoia (a tree that some people still call Wellingtonia) had been struck by a sort of dispersed lightning. The leaves had scorched over a considerable area but the trunk was untouched as in the case of a Hertfordshire lime described in an earlier note. A yew nearby had suffered apparently from the same cause. Perhaps that parish has, like the oak, some affinity for lightning, for several curious things have happened there. The church was severely struck ; and among other freaks the lightning ran round the gutters under the eaves, broke them at the joins and went to earth below them in ten places, making holes a few inches wide that could not be plumbed by an ordinary walking-stick, Nearby an old tree about 100 feet high was struck ; and the middle, which was rotten, set alight. One of the boughs, also hollow and rotten, went up another 40 or 50 feet. This, too, was seen smoking like a factory chimney until the inner furnace burnt through the wood at its base and brought it down.
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