Thunder and Lightning by Camille Flammarion

Author:Camille Flammarion [Flammarion, Camille]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lightning
Published: 2013-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER VII

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING ON TREES AND PLANTS

Nearly two thousand years ago, Pliny wrote, "As regards products of the earth, lightning never strikes the bay tree." And this is why the Roman emperors, in fear always of the fire of heaven, crowned themselves with laurels. This belief was almost universal in ancient times, and survived for many centuries.

But every new century has proclaimed the immunity from lightning of some one member of the vegetable world, though impartial research has now established the fact that there is no such absolute privilege. If certain trees are rarely struck, that is, perhaps, due less to its species than to its size, its hygrometrical condition, and to other influences which it is still difficult to specify; for lightning, as we have seen, has capricious habits which we have not yet succeeded in explaining.

Thus the bay tree has lost its proud position in this respect, and has had to take its place amongst the ordinary run of trees, subject to the unjust anger of Jupiter. Many bay trees of some size have been seen to fall victims to the electric fluid.

The fig tree, the mulberry tree, and the peach tree have also been reputed to enjoy safety, but this also is not the case. There is an instance on record of a fig tree being struck by lightning and completely withered, and another of a mulberry-tree, eighty years old, being partly destroyed.

In our own days, the beech is believed to go uninjured. In the State of Tennessee, in the United States, the opinion is so deeply rooted that beech tree plantations are often resorted to as a refuge in times of storm. But it would be a mistake to place too much trust in them. There are records of beech trees being struck by lightning and destroyed, just like bay trees, fig trees, and the rest.

In 1835, an old beech tree was struck in the forest of Villers-Cotterets. This venerable patriarch was more than three hundred years old. Of its upper branches, which were wide and strong, four of the finest were destroyed; a fifth, stripped of its bark to a great extent, was not torn off the trunk. The trunk was split where the other four branches were torn from it. The interior of it was blackened and slightly carbonized.

On July 15, 1868, at Chéfresne, canton de Percy (Manche), an oak and an ash were struck by lightning within five minutes of each other.

On August 10, 1886, at Haute-Croix, in Brabant, an ash was struck and destroyed. On August 23, in the same year, an ash was struck also at Namur.

The box tree and the Virginian creeper used to be regarded as safeguards against lightning. The same virtue was attributed to the house-leek, a thick herbaceous plant, which grows usually upon walls and roofs, and which the Germans call Donnerblatt or Donnerbarb, Thunder-leaf or Thunder-beard.

According to some authors, again, lightning never strikes resinous trees, such as pines or firs. But this also is disproved by the facts, especially in regard to firs.

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