QUERCUS INFECTORIA. ORD. II. Amentacez. 5 
tained this species of guercus to be the one which produces the galls of com- 
merce.* Weare told by General Hardwicke, in the narrative of his journey 
to Sirinagur, that he found this guercus growing in the neighbourhood of 
Adwaanie.t The greater part of the galls found in the Indian Bazaars are 
said to be brought from Persia by the Arab merchants. 
This species of oak has a crooked stem; it seldom exceeds six feet in height, 
and more frequently assumes the character of a shrub than of a tree; the 
leaves, which are deciduous in Autumn, are on short petioles, glabrous, ob- 
long, with three or four teeth on each side; the teeth oblong, obtuse, mucro- 
nate, as is the blunted apex, the base rounded, and generally unequal, of a 
bright green colour on both sides, but paler beneath. The fruit or acorn is 
solitary, elongated, smooth, twice or thrice as long as the cup, which is nearly 
sessile, in a slight degree downy and scaly. The gal/ appears upon the shoots 
of the younger branches, and soon acquires from four to twelve linesin dia- 
meter; the insect which produces it is the Cynips Quercus-folii of Linneus 
(Diplolepsis Gallz-tinctoriz of Geoffroy) a small hymenopterous insect, or fly, 
with a fawn-coloured body, dark antenne, and the upper part of its body 
of a shining brown. The insect punctures the tender shoot with its spiral 
sting, and deposits its eggs, which attain their full size in a day or two, 
before the larva is hatched. The eggs grow with the gall, and it is by the ir- 
ritation which they keep up, (not, as has been supposed, by the maggot feed- 
ing on the juices of the plant) that the morbid excitement is maintained in the 
vessels of the part, sufficient for the production of this kind of vegetable wen. 
Figure (a) on the drawing represents the insect magnified, (natural size, 
about half an inch from-the tip of one wing to the other,) (6) the larva, (¢) a 
different sort of gall said by Olivier to grow on the same oak. — 
The sensible qualities of galls, and their medical properties and uses, 
have already been detailed under the article Quercus Robur, (see Vol. I. p. 
25-27) we have therefore only to enlarge upon their Chemical Properties. 
From the analysis of Sir H. Davy, we learn, that 500 grains of Aleppo 
galls yielded to pure water by lixiviation, 185 grains of solid matter, of which 
130 were tannin; mucilage and matter rendered insoluble by evaporation, 
12; gallic acid, and a little extractive, 31; saline and earthy matter, 12. 
The soluble part of galls is taken up by about forty times its weight of boil- 
ing water, the residue is tasteless. The watery infusion reddens tincture of 
* Vide Olivier’s Travels, (translation) p.41. + Asiatic Researches, v. 6. p. 376. 
