red snown.

1678 Philos. Trans. 1677 (Royal Soc.) 12 976 On St. Josephs day, upon the Mountains call'd Le Langhe, there fell upon the white Snow, that was there already, a great quantity of red, or if you please of bloody Snow.

1690 C. Mather Wonderful Wks. God Commemorated App. sig. D3 It was credibly affirmed, that in the Winter of the Year 1688, there fell a Red Snow, which lay like Blood on a spot of Ground, not many miles from Boston.

1712 H. Curzon Universal Libr. I. 430 So Historians tell us, Red Snow is seen to fall in Armenia, which abounds with Red Lead.

1749 T. Short Gen. Chronol. Hist. Air I. 371 On St. Joseph's Day fell near Genoa, a red Snow on the top of the white, which being squeezed, gave a bloody Liquor.

1819 Q. Jrnl. Sci. & Arts July 222 (title) Microscopical observations on the red snow.

1933 E. Hawks Bk. Air & Water Wonders vii. 145 Red snow was known to Pliny, and was attributed by him to a dust with which the snow became covered after it had lain for some time on the ground... The phenomenon of red snow is due to the presence of some genus of algæ.

1973 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 17 June 5/2 The three explorers saw white ptarmigan, and the unique ‘red snow’ of the area.

2005 Earth & Planetary Sci. Lett. 29 337/2 Observations of Australian dust incursions into New Zealand..are restricted to large and obvious events, i.e. resulting in red snow.

1825 D. Carmichael in App. Parry's Jrnl. 2nd Voy. 429 On the whole, I should think..that you may safely arrange the Red Snow among the Palmellæ.

1839 C. Darwin in R. Fitzroy & C. Darwin Narr. Surv. Voy. H.M.S. Adventure & Beagle III. xvii. 394 On several of the patches of perpetual snow, I found the Protococcus nivalis, or red snow.

1861 H. Macmillan Footnotes from Nature 145 Red snow..has been discovered spreading over decayed leaves and mosses on the borders of small lakes.

1956 E. I. Rabinowitch Photosynthesis & Related Processes II. ii. xxxi. 1226 Arctic land plants..and the flora of snow fields and glaciers (‘red snow’) are examples of such cold-adapted species.

1987 D. Hall Seasons at Eagle Pond i. 18 In The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin wrote about finding red snow, Protococcus nivalis, on the Peuquenes Ridge in Chile in 1835.

1836 J. C. Loudon Encycl. Plants (rev. ed.) 928 The most remarkable red-snow shower was that which fell..[in] March, 1823,..in Tuscany.

1871 M. Gatty Waifs & Strays Nat. Hist. 128 There are numerous records of red snow showers.

1848 A. Henfrey tr. M. J. Schleiden Plant 243 The snow-covered ice-plains of the extreme North, where the Red-snow Alga alone reminds us of the existence of vegetable organization.

1967 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) B. 252 280 Gelatinous aggregations of red snow algae were often encountered on bare ground from which the snow had recently disappeared.

1995 Arctic & Alpine Res. 27 389 Methanol extracts of red snow algae had greater absorbances in blue and UV spectral regions than did algae from green snow.

1836 J. C. Loudon Encycl. Plants (rev. ed.) 928 The Lepraria Kermesina, which..is considered only a particular state of the red-snow plant itself.

1908 Science 25 Dec. 935/2 A microscopic preparation of the red snow plant, Sphærella nivalis,..was exhibited.

1960 Daily Times-News (Burlington, N. Carolina) 24 Aug. It was proved that the red substance was from an algae plant, which is sometimes called the red snow plant.