8 FAMILIAR TREES 
manufacture of that commodity from oak-galls and 
green vitriol, or in its union with the bog-iron of 
peat-mosses that yield the well-known black bog- 
oak. 
The Oak is attacked by a great variety of 
insects. Of the galls produced by these, the com- 
monest are the marble-gall, whose brown spheres, 
clustered together especially on the branches of 
pollards, form quite a feature among the russet 
leaves of autumn; the oak-apple, those soft, rosy- 
cheeked excrescences which are popularly associated 
with the escape of Charles II.; the oak-spangles 
that stud the under surfaces of the leaves, at first 
with crimson and then with amber-brown; and 
the artichoke-gall, which makes the overlapping 
scales of the diseased bud closely simulate the 
bracts of the vegetable from which it is named. 
Like all our finest trees, the Oak is seen at 
its best when standing alone in the park. The 
straight stem of a tree not yet aged; its rugged 
bark, flecked with many tints; the broken but 
rounded outlines of its well-leafed top; the pink 
Lammas shoots of summer and the russet leaves of 
autumn; all add their various beauty to the 
majesty of the forest monarch. There is a solemn 
grandeur about such venerable, if somewhat decrepit 
veterans as the great Newland Oak, which exceeds 
forty-seven feet in girth; but for true beauty 
vigorous maturity must always surpass the appeals 
of decadent glories to a half-pitying admiration. 
