282 MONOECIA POLYANDRIA. Querciis. 



oak apples, bright, but not durable : that from the genuine galls 

 more durable. Bark for tanning leather : from its astringency 

 valuable in medicine, e. g. in ague, &c. The galls, used in 

 making ink, or balls on the leaves, arise from a small insect, 

 a Cynips, depositing an egg on the perforated leaf: the ball grows 

 with the insect worm hatched in its centre. This lan^a or worm 

 changes to a four winged insect, hke its parent. The larvas of 

 various butterflies and moths feed on the leaves. 



The oak in a rich soil, and suitable climate, nearly triples its 

 value of timber in about nine years. An oak in about fifty years 

 becomes fit for the dock-yard, and ship-building. The oak 

 derives its chief nourishment from its tap root, which should, there- 

 fore, be preserved from injury. fVith. The acorns formerly the 

 food of Britons I ! Pheasants and hogs eat the acorns also. Tim- 

 ber of this species better than that of Q. sessiliflora. See Ger. Em. 

 1341. I. Strange remarks on oak apples. 



" Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum, thus notices the 

 oak which very many inhabitants of Oxford remember to have 

 stood near the entrance of the Water-walk in Magdalen College. 

 ' The old oak is still standing nigh to which the founder ordered 

 his college to be built.' The foundation of the college was in 

 1448. The tree must have been old and large when the founder 

 assigned the northern boundary to be near the great oak. If we 

 suppose it to have been then between three and four hundred 

 years old, it may have been planted about the time of the Norman 

 conquest. It fell in 1789. It had become hollow, and was much 

 deca^-ed at the root. Its girth was twent^'-one feet nine inches ; 

 the height about seventy-two feet." — /. S. Duncan s Botanical 

 Theology. Edit. 2nd. p. 84. 



Evelyn in his Sylva mentions that this oak may be " seen, 



whose branches shoot sixteen yards from the stem." Evelyns 

 Sika, (an. 1662.) hy Hunter, p. 498. Edit. 1776. Plot in his 

 Oxfordshire (edit, anno 1677.) observes of this once gigantic tree: 

 that " there might 256 horses stand under that ^;-ee; or allowing 

 two square feet for uman, 3456 men. Plot, pages 158, 159. An 

 oak to supply the place of the abovenaentioned celebrated tree 

 was planted, April 8th, 1807, by Mr. Robert Penso?!, Gardener^ 

 0.vford, " on the left as you enter the walk on the spot where the 

 large oak grew." — Robert Penson, Oct. 1832. 



Q. sessiliJlSra. Stalkless fruited oak. Leaves on stalks 

 lengthened out, falling off, oblong ; with opposite, acute 

 sinuses. Fruit stalkless. E. B. 1845. 



IVoods, less common tlian the first. In Bagley Wood, and divers 

 Other places, first obsers^ed by Mr. Bobart. Ray. (Bagley 

 Wood. B.v.) I found two vars. of this species, one with 

 stalkless leaves; and another with longish, tiled (imbricated) 

 scales, the first at Stanton St. John's ; the second, between 

 Shotover and Cuddesdon, An eminent Botanist to whom the 



