2 British Vegetable Galls 



The word " gall " is derived from three sources, and has 

 many significations. The first comes from the Anglo-Saxon 

 word " ge'lla" and, when used as a noun, denotes anything 

 extremely bitter, the fluid secreted in the glandular substances 

 of the liver being the most familiar example ; but under this 

 derivation, when used in another sense, it denotes implacable 

 enmity and spite. The next derivation is from the French 

 word " galer" the active verb "to gall," and supplies a meaning 

 to such expressions as to tease, to fret, to annoy, or harass 

 a person ; it also implies a wearing away, or breaking of the 

 skin by rubbing. The third is from the Latin "galla," and 

 is used to signify the excrescences which make their appear- 

 ance on various parts of many plants. 



It will not be difficult to show in due course how 

 particularly applicable is the word gall, inasmuch as most 

 kinds not only possess the bitterness of flavour which renders 

 them objectionable to the palate, but, by their very mode of 

 growth, tend to annoy and harass the vegetable substances 

 upon which they may be found, causing them to bulge and 

 swell to abnormal sizes, and producing deformities and con- 

 tortions which are wholly foreign to all natural vegetable 

 growth. 



Originally the word was used only in connection with a 

 painful swelling, pustule, or blister in cattle, more especially 

 the horse. In later use it indicated an external sore or wound 

 produced by rubbing or chafing. 



With regard to the history of the word, the New English 

 Dictionary informs us that the first mention of the word gall, 

 as applied to the excrescences produced on trees, occurs in 

 "Trevisa." Barth. De. P. R. XVII. civ. (Tollem MS.): "The 

 mall (Mandragora) haf white leues . . . and apples growej) on 

 fe leues, as galles growej) on oken leues." The next use of 

 it was in 1440, and in 148 1 it was used by Caxton. In 

 1 562 Turner, in his " Herbal," ii. 109 b., says : " A gall is 

 the fruite of an oke, and especially of the lefe." Fifty-four 

 years afterwards Surfl. and Markh. in "Country Farme," 

 p. 28, remark : " He shall know a fruilfull and fertile yeare if he 

 see the Oke apples, commonly called Gals, a Flie engcndred 

 and bred." In 1697 Dryden used the word, Virg., " Georg." iv. 

 389: "To these add pounded Galls and Roses dry." In 



