Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Presented manuscript is entitled "Tree-ring analysis of intermediate hawthorn (Crataegus media Bechst.) in NW Poland". The main goal of the research is to analyses hawthorn growth and compare it with climate variations.

Based on the available literature hawthorn is rarely used or even never used in purpose of dendroclimotology. This research is a step toward to filling this gap. Last decades Fritts Schweigruber has started projects concerned searching shrubs or trees that weren't used before in paleoclimatology and were growing in glacier forefields or other environmental. Potential of such dendro material is obvious - new species with specific climatic response could be used as additional information about past climate or even be a new proxy records.

In this term this particular paper is very relevant to novel goals of dendroclimatology. Absolutely dated and new ring-width chronology of hawthorn spanning 40 years is presented.  Response climate analysis showed tree-ring growth positively depends on precipitation sums (from May to August) of the current year. Pointer year analysis is also presented in the paper. It was shown that precipitation again is the main favorable factor determined tree-ring growth.

In general, paper represent classic dendrochronological work with very clear methods.

As disadvantage I would point out that this paper is extremely short. It depends on editor to decide whether publish it or not. But in general paper is ok without any problems concerning basic dendro things.

My suggestions and questions:

1. It would be great to compare hawthorn with other available "Low CDI" species located in Poland.
2. Is there perspective for paleoclimatology? In case of very short period of life it looks like potential is quite low.

Author Response

MDPI Forests                                                               Szczecin, 14.12.2020

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks.

  We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 1

All suggestions of Reviewer 1 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. We added an analysis of the similarity of hawthorn and other tree species from NW Poland, including 'Low CDI' (Table 1).
2. In the discussion, we added a comment on the possible use of the analyzed species in palaeoclimatology and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. We added an analysis of the similarity of hawthorn and other tree species from NW Poland, including those significant for dendrochronology, e.g. oaks and pines (Table 1). Unfortunately, we do not have birch chronology from NW Poland.
2. Figure 1 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. Figure 4 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion (in review it is referred to as Figure 3 but the description refers to fig. 4).
4. The language accuracy was re-checked, and corrected where required.

We hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,
the authors

Anna Cedro and Bernard Cedro

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Find below is my review for the paper 'Tree-ring analysis of intermediate hawthorn in NW Poland' by Cendro and Cedro.

This work is interesting because such a trial to a shrub species is very rare. The analytical methods are mostly straightforward and sound even though the results  are not so interesting.

The rarity should be positively evaluated for publication.

My suggestion is that the paper could be more interesting if the authors can show crossdatability with other species that are important in dendrochronology, e.g. Oaks, Birches, Pines, and so on. Whichever the dating stats are good or not, many dendro-colleagues will be very much interested in  having a look at it.

The English must be improved drastically since the manuscript contains too many typos, basic grammatical errors and bad collocations that can be easily found even by non-native English speakers including me.

The graphical presentations also must be improved. See the comments below:

• Figure 1 must be improved by adding much wider area map. Otherwise, readers outside Poland will not be able to know where it is.
• Figure 3 must be must be improved for example by presenting the cfs and rfs using three panels for each of the climate variables. The use of colors also must be changed for readers with color-blind tendency.

Author Response

MDPI Forests                                                                              Szczecin, 14.12.2020

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

We are grateful for the insightful analysis of our manuscript, and all the comments, and suggestions provided. We did our best to take into account all the remarks.

  We hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. We added an analysis of the similarity of hawthorn and other tree species from NW Poland, including those significant for dendrochronology, e.g. oaks and pines (Table 1). Unfortunately, we do not have birch chronology from NW Poland.
2. Figure 1 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. Figure 4 - Corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestion (in review it is referred to as Figure 3 but the description refers to fig. 4).
4. The language accuracy was re-checked, and corrected where required.

We hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,
the authors

Anna Cedro and Bernard Cedro

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf