15G ENGLISH BOTANY. 



There is the small round currant gall, formed on tlie pendent catkins ; the artichoke 

 gall, or oak strobile, probably the "oak-nut" of the ancients. It is about the size 

 of a filbert, and resembles a fir-cone or artichoke. It is produced by the Gyn'qjs 

 Querent Genimce, and is a most beautiful foliose gall ; for the development of 

 the bud, although perverted, not being -wholly prevented, the leaves are gradually 

 evolved. The bedeguar, or hairy gall (Galla capiUaris), of the ancients, is a beautiful 

 though scarce species. In structure it is like the bedeguar, or " Robin's pincushion," 

 of the rose-tree, and is usually situated in the axils of the leaves. Whether the " oak- 

 wool," once so celebrated as wicks for lamps, was the same as our cottony or woolly 

 gall is doubtful. The leaves of the oak-tree are likewise subject to the attacks of 

 insects, and are often observed covered Math curious excrescences of different forms, 

 occasionally of a beautiful rosy colour. Oak spangles, or little red insular scales on 

 the under side of the oak-leaf, are mentioned by Mr. Lowndes, and described by the 

 Rev. N. T. Bree. Some ^\Titers consider them to be parasitic plants ; others, the 

 work of an insect. 



A veiy curious legend existed at one time about the fruit of the oak-tree, which 

 is perpetuated by its relation in Gerard's Herbal. Many old writers assert that 

 there are "certain trees, whereon do grow certain shells, tending to russet, wherein 

 are contained little living creatures, which shells in time of maturitie do open, and 

 out of them do grow those little living things, which falHng into the water do 

 become fowles, which we call barnakles ; but the other which do fall on the land 

 perish and come to nothing." Now the origin of the word barnacle is said by 

 Professer Burnet to be from " lairn, a child, and aacle or acle, the aac or oak, 

 signifying the child or offspring of the oak. Gerard gives us a most amusing 

 account of his having seen and touched these barnacles on old and broken pieces of 

 wood washed up from the sea, and says : " When it is perfectly formed, the shelf 

 gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the aforesaid lace or string ; next 

 come the legs of the bird, hanging out, and, as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell 

 by degi^ees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangcth only by the bill ; in short 

 space after it cometh to full maturitie and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth 

 feathers, and groweth to a fowl bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, having 

 black legs, bill or beake, and feathers black and white, spotted in such a manner as 

 our magpie, called in some places a pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by 

 no other name than a tree goose ; for the truth hereof, if any doubt, let them repair to 

 me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses." This very curious 

 fable must have originated from the fact of old pieces of oak wood being frequently 

 found with a colony of ciriipedes or barnacles attached to them, and the fibrous cirri 

 or fringe-like appendages which hang from their shells and move about look some- 

 thing like the feathers of a bird, and may have misled the credulous observers of 

 former times, who associated them with the birds feeding at the water's edge in this 

 extraordinary manner. This story is as reliable as the more generally received notion 

 that toads and frogs have been discovered in the heart of ancient trees embedded in 

 the wood, but yet aHve, having been enclosed in that position for centuries. In order 

 to prove that such a condition of life was impossible. Dr. Buckland some years ago 

 tried the experiment, and enclosed three toads of moderate size in the trunk of a tree, 

 in holes made air-tight, but large enough not to crush them. At the end of a year 

 every one of the toads thus pegged in the knotty entrails of the tree was found dead 

 and decayed. The oak is the badge of the Scotch clan Cameron. 



