70 LETTERS TO MERRETT. 



[Fol. 43.] Capillaris marina sparsa fucus capillaris 

 marinus sparsus sive capillitius marinus or sea peri- 

 wigge."^ strings of this are often found on the sea 

 shoare. but -this is the full figure I haue seen 3 times 

 as large. 



Viscum, is doubtless the Mistletoe. 

 Polypodium, the Common Polypody Fern. 



Juli pilules: "little balls on the flower catkins." The Currant Gall, 

 Neurosterus baccarum, which is the spring form of N. lenticularisy 

 Oliv. 

 Gemma foraminatm \formicat<2 ?"[ foliorum : "pimple-like buds on the 

 leaves." Leaf-galls, such as the Silky Button, N. numismatis, Oliv., 

 and the common Spangle, N. lenticularus, Oliv. 

 Excremenium fungosum verticibus scatens ; "a spongy secretion bursting 

 out from the ends of the shoots." The Oak Apple, Biorhiza termi- 

 nalis. Fab. 

 Excremenium lanatum : the Woolly Gall, Andricus ramuli, L., a some- 

 what rare Gall, resembling a ball of cotton-wool. 

 Capitula squamosa jacaa amula : " little scaley (or imbricated) heads- 

 resembling the heads of Jacea " (Black Knapweed). The Artichoke 

 Gall. Andricus fecundatrix, Htg. 

 Nodi : probably swellings of any sort, whether caused by insects or not. 

 Melleus liquor : Honey-dew, a secretion of Aphides. 

 Tubera radicum vermibus scatentia : " swollen tubers on the roots contain- 

 ing grubs ; " without doubt the Root-Gall, Andricus radicis. Fab. 

 Polythalamous Galls, often very large at the roots or on the trunk near 

 the ground. 

 Mosses, Lichens, and Fungi, all "genuine products of the Oak,'' need no- 

 comment, but Mr. Bloomfield remarks, " How wonderfully observant 

 Sir Thomas Browne must have been thus to distinguish the various, 

 galls, &c., and to point them out so distinctly.'' 

 Browne's contemporary. Dean Wren, seems sadly to have misunderstood 

 the fructification of the Oak. In a note on Browne's remarks on the 

 "Miseltoe" (Pseudodoxia, book ii., chap, vi.), he says, "Arboreous 

 excrescences of the Oak are soe many as may raise the greatest wonder. 

 Besides the gall, which is his proper fruite, hee shootes out oakerns, i.e., 

 ut nunc vocamus (acornes), and oakes apples, and polypodye, and moss ;. 

 five several sorts of excrescences." See also letter to his son. Dr. Edward 

 Browne, in which Sir Thomas Browne says that "wee haue little or none 

 of viscus qutrcinus, or miselto of the oake, in this country ; butt I beleeve 

 they have in the woods and parks of Oxfordshyre." — Wilkin, i., p. 279. 



1^ In Sir Thomas Browne's time the Hydrozoa were not distinguished from 

 the Corallines, and both were regarded as vegetable growths. It is almost 

 impossible to determine from his vague descriptions even to which section 



