FAMILY HERBAL. 247 



is found upon it ; and has at sometimes been suppo- 

 sed a fruit of it : the shrub thence obtained its 

 name of the scarlet oak. It grows only six or 

 eight feet high. The branches are tough, and 

 covered with a smooth greyish bark. The leaves 

 are an inch long, three quarters of an inch broad, 

 of a figure approaching to oval, serrated about 

 the edges, and a little prickly. The flowers are 

 small and inconsiderable ; the fruit is an acorn, like 

 that of the common oak, but smaller, standing in 

 its cup. The kermes, or scarlet grain, is a small 

 round substance of the bigness of a pea, of a fine 

 red colour within, and of a purplish blue without, 

 covered with a fine hoary dust, like a bloom upon 

 a plum. It is an insect at that time full of young. 

 When they intend to preserve it in its own form, 

 they find ways of destroying the principle of life 

 within, else the young come forth, and it is spoiled. 

 When they express the juice, they bruise the whole 

 grains, and squeeze it through a hair cloth ; they 

 then add an equal weight of fine sugar fo it, and 

 send it over to us under the name of juice of kermes ; 

 this is used in medicine much more than the grain 

 itself. 



It is a cordial, good against faintings, and to drive 

 out the small pox ; and for women in childbed. It 

 supports the spirits, and at the same time promotes 

 the necessary discharges. 



Oak of Jerusalem. Botrys. 



A mttt.f. plant, native, of the warmer coun- 

 tries, and kept in our gardens, with leaves which 

 have been supposed to resemble those of the oak 

 tree, whence it got its name, and small yellowish 

 flowers. The stalk is a foot and half high, round- 

 ish angulated a little, or deeply striated, and of a 



