Previous studies on directionally soilidified h-exagonal close-packed (hcp) sea ice have found that the c-axis orient parallel to a shear fluid flow that is driven external to the solute boundary layer, and perpendicular to a flow that is driven from within the mushy zone as a result of the solidification itself. The origin of these transverse solidification textures is-thought to arise from the interaction of these flows with the platelet-like dendrites. However, transverse textures have not been previously studied in hcp phase-rich metallic alloys, which also exhibit platelets. Unlike in a control on a Zn-3wt% Sn alloy solidified vertically at 0.3degreesC/min and in an experiment on the same alloy solidified horizontally at the same rate, we found that a Zn-19wt% Sn alloy solidified horizontally at 0.1degreesC/min exhibits some preferred orientation W the c-axis in the direction perpendicular to the flow, presumably due to the efficacy of convection over diffusion in removing solute from within the mushy zone. This suggests that transverse texturing is a general phenomenon of directionally solidified hcp alloys in the presence of fluid flow, as a result of the. platelet nature of hcp dendrites. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.