THE TRINCIPLES OP BOTANY. 
817 
“ An order which comprehends the oak, the hazel-nut, the 
beech, and the Spanish chestnut, can scarcely require much 
to be known to a European reader of its properties, which 
are of too common a use to be unknown even to the most 
ignorant. Whatever excellence may be found in the timber 
of the European species is not at all inferior to that of hotter 
countries. Blume tells us that his Lithocarpus javensis is 
called Passan-batu, or stone oak, because of its hardness. 
The leaves of Quercus falcata were employed, on account of 
their astringency, externally in cases of gangrene; and the 
same astringent principle which pervades all the order has 
caused them to be employed even as febrifuges, tonics, and 
stomachics. Cork is the bark of Quercus suber ; it contains a 
peculiar principle called Suberin, and an acid called the 
Suberic. The galls that writing ink is prepared from are 
the produce of the Quercus infectoria , from which they 
derive their astringency. The acorns of a species known in 
the Levant under the name of Yelonia ( Quercus cegilops ) are 
imported for the use of dyers. The fixed acids, called Quer- 
citannic and Gallic, which have the power of guarding animal 
and vegetable fibre from decay, are abundant in many of 
the oaks, whose bark is therefore invaluable for tanning. The 
yellow dyeing bark, called Quercitron, belongs to the Q.tinctoria. 
The husks of the common beech-tree yield a narcotine extrac¬ 
tive called Fagine. The sweetness of Spanish chestnuts and 
filberts are not confined to the nuts of those trees ; the other 
species of Corylus resemble them in that respect, as do the beech 
and many sorts of oak, especially Q. gramuntia , whose 
acorns are the Belotes of Spain, and a variety of Q. sessili- 
Jlora , which is believed to be the ^Esculus of Vigil. The 
bark of the oak has been employed as a coarse kind of febri¬ 
fuge. In hot weather a large quantity of saccharine matter 
. is secreted by the leaves of Q. mannifera, in Koordistan, 
where it is made into sweetmeats. Oil is obtained from the 
seeds of some species, such as the beech and the hazel-nut.”— 
Vegetable Kingdom , p. 291. 
As regards the mast or seeds of the oak, it is well known 
that some years it is so abundant as to be largely used as 
cattle-food ; this was the case in 1870, and as great diversity 
of opinion existed as to their qualities, experiments were then 
carried on which were fully reported in our Journal. As refer¬ 
ring to the sweet principles already adverted to as being found 
in the seeds of some species, it should be noted that when 
fully ripe, and especially in the germinating process, much 
sugar is developed, which points to this semi-malting of 
acorns as of some importance in feeding with them. 
