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XXV. Some Account of the Galls found on a as of Oak from the Shores of 
the Dead Sea. By Ayimer Bourke LamsErt, Esq., F.R.S. V.P.L.S., Sc. 
Read June 2, 1835. 
SOME time ago I had the honour to submit to the Society the branch of a 
shrub from Monte Video bearing Galls containing a new insect brought by 
Mr. Earle, who accompanied Captain Fitzroy in the * Beagle, I have now the 
pleasure to exhibit specimens and a drawing of the far-famed apples “ Mala 
insana" from the mountains east of the Dead Sea, and which now proves to be 
a Gall on a species of oak, containing an insect. These Galls were brought 
home by the Hon. Robert Curzon, who has lately returned from the Holy 
Land. They are the first that have been seen in England, and will enable us 
to clear up the many great mistakes that have been made by travellers about 
them. Mr. Curzon tells me the tree that produces them grows in abundance 
on the mountains in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, and is about the size 
of our apple-tree. It is, perhaps, the ** Quercus foliis dentato-aculeatis" men- 
tioned by Hasselquist as growing on Mount Tabor (Trav. p. 281.). There 
appear to be two or three different plants.for whose fruit these Galls have 
been mistaken, viz. Solanum sodomeum, which appears to have been con- 
founded with Solanum Melongena, and Calotropis gigantea, &c. &c. I shall 
refer to what Hasselquist says (p. 287.) of the Mala insana, and likewise the 
account given of it in that useful work, the Modern Traveller, by Mr. Conder, 
who seems to have brought together all that has been said or written on this 
most interesting subject: and what is very extraordinary, and greatly to the 
praise of that gentleman,—having probably never seen the production itself, — 
he rightly guessed its real nature. Mr. Curzon informs me these Galls when 
on the tree are of a rich purple, and varnished over with a soft substance of 
the consistence of honey, shining with a most brilliant lustre in the sun, which . 
makes the Galls appear like a most delicious and tempting fruit. Having had. 
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