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form of its leaves. Bosses in the vaulting of Bristol Cathedral show 
both kinds of leafage. In the same Cathedral there is a stellated 
recess dividing the Berkeley Chapel from the choir the design 
of which is unusual, because carved on the oak leaves are clearly 
shown examples of a species of oak-gall, placed like peas on the 
leaf veins, and known in modern times to be caused by the 
puncture of a small fly of the Cynips tribe, which deposits its eggs 
in the substance of the leaf. (Fig. i.) It shows how carefully Nature 
was observed by these early craftsmen and how they strove to 
carve true representations of the plants they knew, begrudging 
no expenditure of thought or time in adding such interesting de¬ 
tails as these small round excrescences which are familiar objects 
on the foliage of oaks in those woods where the gall insect 
abounds. 
Another tree represented constantly is the Maple, with its 
five lobed leaves and winged fruit. Its application in stone was 
a common ornament of bosses and corbels in many buildings of 
this period, and a century later was a close competitor of the oak 
and vine. It is to be seen in Ely Lady Chapel, on the altar at 
Beverley, and in Lynn Parish Church, whilst in Bristol Cathedral 
it forms a handsome border round a recess built to receive one of 
the Berkeley knights, and the finials show an artistic treatment 
of the same plant. 
In one of the spandrels of the shrine of St. Frideswide in 
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, the maple with its fruit forms a 
deep frame round a female mask. This fruit, in scientific lan¬ 
guage the samara, consists of two nuts placed side by side with 
two wings spreading horizontally, so as to form together one 
straight line, and by this formation the maple is easily distin¬ 
guished from the fruit of the ash and sycamore. 
The carving of the maple on the Berkeley recess 
has led to an unfortunate error in the many published 
descriptions of the plants used in ecclesiastical sculpture 
of the 14th century. The statement is made that Bristol 
Cathedral holds the unique position of showing the Mistletoe 
amongst its carved stonework. This is a mistake and had its 
origin in the casual observations of a passer-by, who, noting the 
modern restoration of the maple fruit on the lower end of the 
arch, where the original carving had become worn away, thought 
he recognised in it a representation of the berries and angular 
leafage of the Mistletoe, the symbol of the Druids in their re¬ 
ligious observances. Had he looked more closely he would have 
detected that the maple fruits and foliage higher up the arch were 
springing from the same stem, and that the lower portion was 
bad modern workmanship in which the mason ignorant of his 
subject had cut new fruits with the wings lying at an angle to 
each other, instead of in a straight line, and would thus have 
avoided an error which has been copied and repeated ever since 
without any truth. 
