1208 QUERCUS. (CLASS XXI. ORDER VII. 
“ A darksome grove of Oaks was spread out near,” 
Whose gloom impressive told “A God dwells here.” 
Ovid. 
It is probable that such feelings were the original cause of the sacred- 
ness of groves, &c., and their single trees, from some real or ima- 
ginative reason, became monuments to particular individuals of 
distinction, and were visited as a tomb of any distinguished person in 
modern days, and at length became consecrated objects of veneration. 
In our own country, the 29th of May, or Oak-apple day, is so 
called in commemoration of King Charles the Second having con- 
cealed himself in an Oak tree, and thus escaped from his enemies, 
after the battle of Worcester. The Oak is infested with a kind of 
insect, which deposits its ova in the bark or buds of the tender 
branches ; by this an excrescence in the shape and appearance of a 
small apple is formed. Loyal men on this day wore them as well as 
the leaves of the Oak gilded in their hats; wreaths and garlands 
made of the branches and leaves were variously decorated with 
ribbons, painted eggs, &e, and carried in procession through the 
villages with great glee and rejoicings, but now almost forgotten. Dr. 
Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum Lond. 1724, says that “ Not 
far from Boscobel House, just by the horse track passing through the 
wood, stood the Royal Oak into which the King and his companion, 
Colonel Carless, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they 
judged it no longer safe to stay in the house; the family reaching 
them victuals with the nut-hook. The tree is now inclosed in,” the 
author continues, “ with a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered 
with laurel ;” and he further adds, “Close by its side grows a young 
thriving plant from one of its acorns;” and then gives a Latin in- 
scription from the marble tablet over the door, commemorating the 
event of the King’s escape. 
The fruit of the Oak acorns appear formerly to have been more 
valuable than the trees themselves. The primitive diet of the ancient 
Greeks appears to have been acorns. Virgil says, Geor. i. 
“Ye deities! who fields and plains protect, 
Who rule the seasons and the year direct, 
Bacchus and fost’ring Ceres, pow’rs divine, 
Who gave us corn for mast, for water wine.” 
In Strabo’s time Rome obtained its supply of hogs from the woods 
of Gaul, and Pliny tells us that the Romans expressly provided by 
the laws of the Twelve Tables that the owner of a tree might gather up 
his acorns, though they should have fallen on another man’s ground ; 
and he further tells us that acorns in bis time formed the chief wealth 
of many nations, and that in times of scarcity mast was sometimes 
ground into meal and mixed with water, and made into bread. Oak 
woods are still looked upon as of great value for the feeding of swine, 
