OF FOREST-TREES. 



71 



flexible nature, of an hard black grain, bearing a smaller acorn, and CHAP. iii. 



viz. from twenty-five to forty feet, nay sometimes as many yards, whereas 

 the other shooting up more erect, will be contented with fifteen. This 

 kind is farther to be distinguished by its fulness of leaves, which tarnish 



Ilex foHis rotundioribus et spinosis, e luco Grarauntio. Bot. Monsp. 140. The holly- 

 leaved EVERGREEN OAK. 



Linnaeus has made this tree a distinct species, but Mr. Miller seems to think it only a variety 

 of the former. The leaves are prickly and shaped like the Holly. Hence its name. It 

 grows naturally about Montpelier. 



12. QUERCUS C coccjFERA ) foliis ovatis indivisis, spinoso dentatis glabris. Lin. Sp. 

 Plant. 1413. Oak with oval, widivided, smooth leaves, which are prickly and indented. Ilex 

 aculeata, cocciglandifera. C. B. P. 425. The kermes oak. 



This kind of Oak grows plentifully in Spain, Provence, Languedoc, and along the Mediterra- 

 nean coast. It is a tree of small growth, seldom arising above twelve feet. The leaves are 

 oval and undivided ; they are smooth on their surface, but indented on their edges, which 

 are armed with prickles like those of the Holly. It is feathered to the bottom, which gives 

 it the appearance of a bushy Shrub. The acorns are smaller than those of the common Oak. 

 From this tree are gathered the Kermes, with which the ancients used to die their garments of 

 that beautiful colour called Coccineus, or Cocceus, being different from the Purpura of the 

 Phoenicians obtained from the testaceous fish called Murex. In course of time the Murex 

 became neglected, and the Kermes we are now speaking of, was introduced. This sup- 

 ported its reputation till the discovery of America, when it gave place to the Cochineal, an 

 insect found in the Mexican woods upon a plant named by Linnaeus, Cactus Cochinillifer. 



Both ancients and moderns seem to have had confused notions concerning the origin and nature 

 of the Kermes ; some considering it as a fruit, without a just knowledge of the tree which 

 produced it; others taking it for an excrescence formed by the puncture of a particular fly, 

 the same as the common gall produced upon the Oak. Tournefort was of this number. — 

 Count Marsigli, and Dr. Nisole, a physician of Montpelier, made experiments and obser- 

 vations, with a view to further discoveries, but did not perfectly succeed. Two other phy- 

 sicians at Aix in Provence, Dr. Emeric and Dr. Garidel, applied themselves about the same 

 time, and with greater success, having finally discovered that the Kermes is the body of an 

 insect, after having undergone several transformations. The progress of these transforma- 

 tions must be considered at three different seasons. In the first stage, about the beginning 

 of March, an animalcule, no larger than a grain of millet, is perceived sticking to the branches 

 of the tree, where it fixes itself, and soon becomes immoveable ; at this period it grows the 

 most, and swells with the sustenance that it draws in : this state of rest seems to have de- 

 ceived the curious observer, it then resembling an excrescence of the bark; during this 

 period of its growth, it appears to be covered with a down, extending over its whole body 

 like a net, and adhering to the bark ; its figure is convex, not unlike a very small Sloe ; in 



it forth his roots more above 

 be allowed a greater distance, 



