Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/55

Rh GALLS species of Cy-nips; in August they become detached from the leaves that hear them, and are caused to jump by the spasmodic movements of the grub within the thin-walled gall—cavity.1 FIG. l.—a, Aleppo “blue “ gull; b, ditto in section, showing central cavity for grub; c, Aleppo “ white“ gall, perforated by insect; tl, the same in section (natural size). Common gall-nuts, iiut-galls, or oak-galls, the Aleppo, Turkey, or Levant galls of commerce (German, Gallaygfol, Lcvanttsclac Gallon; French, Nata: do Gallo), are produced on Qucrcus in- _fcctorz'a., a variety of Q. Lusitanica, Vebb, by Oynips (Diplolcpis, Latr.) ti'nctorz'ot, L., or C’. gallw tiiictoriczz, Oliv. Aleppo galls (galla: halcpcnscs) are brittle, hard, spherical bodies, %— §-inch in diaineter, ridged and warty on the upper half, and light brown to dark grcyisli-yellow within. Vhat are termed “ blue, ” blaek,”or“green” galls contain the insect; the inferior “white” galls, which are lighter coloured, and not so compact, heavy, or astringent, are gathered after its escape (see ﬁg. 1). Less valued are the galls of Tripoli (Tarapliis or Tarabulus, whence the name “ Tarablous galls”). The most esteemed Syrian galls, according to Pereira, are those of Mosul on the Tigris. Other varieties of nut-galls, besides the above mentioned, are employed in Europe for various purposes. Commercial gall-iiuts have yielded on analysis from 26 (H. Davy) to 77 (Bueliner) per cent. of tannin (see Vincn, loc. cL't.), with gallie and cllagic acids, ligiieous ﬁbre, water, and minute quantities of proteids, chlorophyll, resin, free sugar, and, in the cells around the inner shelly chamber, calcium oxalate. Oak-galls are iiicntioiied by Tlieoplirastus, Dioscorides (i. 146), and other ancient writers, including Pliny (Nat. Hist., xvi. 9, 10; xxiv. 5) according to whom they may be produced “in a single night. Their insect origin appears to have been entirely unsuspected until within comparatively recent times, though Pliny, indeed, makes the observation that a kind of giiat is produced in certain excrescences on oak leaves. Bacon describes oak-apples as “an exudation of plants joined with pntrefaction.” I’oinet'-’ thought that gall-nuts were the fruit of the oak, and a. similar opinion obtains among the modern Chinese, who apply to them the term Jlzt-shih-tsze, or “ fruits for the foodless.”3 Hippo- crates adiiiinistered gall-nuts for their astringent properties, and Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxiv. 5) recommends them as a remedy in aifeetioiis of the gums and uvula, ulcerations of the mouth, and some dozen more complaints. The drug has been used in the treatment of intermittent fevers,‘ but appears to be adapted only for their iiiildest phases.5 In India it is given also in chronic di-.i_ri_'lid-a, dysentery, gonorrhoea, and several other diseases.“ In Bi-it_isli pharmacy g-.1ll—nuts are used in the preparation of the two astringent ointnients ungzu,-ntum gallcc and wngucntum gallcc cum epic, and of the ttnctzurt gallon, and also as a source of tannin and of gallic acid (q.v.). They have from very early times been resorted to as a means of staining the hair of a dark colour, and they are the base of the tattooing dye of the Somali wonien.7 On the Continent they are employed in tanning. VVitli respect to the technical appli- cation of gall-nuts, see further BLAsTi.'G, vol. iii. p. 808, DYEING, v_ol. vii. p. 579, and INK. In consequence of the increased consump- tion in dyeing of suinacli, myrobalans, and new chemical sub- _1 See _R. H. Stretch and C. D. Gibbes, Proc. Cali:/'orm'a Acad. Agt. 1361671668, 1V. pp. 265 and 266, 3 A 00mPl6ie1_Izst0ry ofpmgs (translation), p. 169, Lond., 1748. F. Porter Smith, Contrzb. towards the 1l[at.1|[eolz'ca. . . of C'h1.'na, 11-5100, 1871.. _ 4 Cullen, 1l[at.1l[ed., ii. p. 46, 1789. G E. J. Waring, Pharm. oflridia, p. 463, 1868. E. J. Waring, Remarks on. . . Bazaar Jlledic-L'nes. . L0iid., 3d ed., 1875. 7 R. F. Burton, First Footsteps in E. Africa, p. 178, 1856. . of India, 45 stances, the British importations of gall-nuts have on the whole declined considerably. The quantities and values of galls imported into the United Kingdom in 1877 were as follows :-—From Germany, 1963 cwts., £7759; Turkey, 6420 cwts., £20,712; Egypt, 1702 cwts., £6244: China, 11,748 cwts., £32,715; British India (Bombay and Scinde), 2181 cwts., £2230; other countries, 2411 cwts., £7176; total, 26,425 cwts., of the value of £76,834, against 25,884 cwts., value £64,704, in 1876. The gall—inakii1g Hymenoptera include, besides the C'_z/ml pidce proper, certain species of the genus Eur;/toma (Iso- soma, Walsh) and family Chctlciclidae, e.g., E.-hordei, the “joint-worin” of the United States, which produces gall.--. on the stalks of wheat ;3 also various members of the family Tent/trediitidce, or saw-ﬂies. The larvae of the latter usually vacate their galls, to spin their cocoons in the earth, or, as in the case of Athalia abd0mz'nal2°s, Klg., of the clematis, may emerge from their shelter to feed for some days on the leaves of the gall-bearing plant. The dipterous gall-formers include the gall-midges, or gall-gnats (0ecz'dom_2/idoe), minute slender-bodied insects, with bodies usually covered with long hairs, and the wings folded over the back. Some of them build cocoons within their galls, others descend to the ground to become pupze. The true willow-galls are the work either of these or of saw- ﬂies. Their galls are to be met with on a great variety of plants of widely distinct genera, e.g., the ash, maple, horn- beam, oak,9 grape-vine,1° alder, gooseberry, blackberry, pine, juniper, thistle, fennel, meadowsweet,“ common cabbage, and cereals. In the northern United States, in May, “legions of these delicate minute ﬂies ﬁll the air at twilight, hovering over wheat—ﬁelds and shrubbery. A strong north- west wind, at such times, is of inealculable value to the farmer.” 12 Other gall-makiiig dipterous ﬂies are members of the family Trg/peticlce, which disﬁgure the seed-heads of plants, and of the family JII-_z/cetophilidce, such as the species Sciara tz'licola,13 Low, the cause of the oblong or rounded green and red galls of the young shoots and leaves of the lime. Galls are formed also by hemipterous and homopterous insects of the families Tz'n_qz'clw, Psyllidce, Coccidoe, and Aphidoe. Coco-us pinicortic-2's causes the growth of patches of white ﬂocculeiit and downy matter on the smooth bark of young trees of the white pine in America.“ The galls of examples of the last family arecommon objects on lime- leaves, and on the petioles of the poplar. An American Apliid of the genus Pemphig-us produces black, ragged, leathery, and cup—shaped excrescences on the young branches of the hickory. The Chinese galls of commerce ( IVoo-pet-tsze) are stated to be produced by Aphis Oltinerwis, Bell, on Rhus semialata, Murr. (IF. Buclci-amcla, Roxb.), an Anacardiaceous tree indigenous to N. India, China, and Japan. They are hollow, brittle, irregularly pyriforni, tuberculated or branched vesicles, with thin walls, covered externally with a grey down, and internally with a white chalk-like matter, and iiisect-remains (see ﬁg. 2). The escape of the insect takes place on the spontaneous bursting of the walls of the vesicle, probably when, after viviparons (tlielytokous) reproduction for several generations, male winged insects are developed. The galls 5 A. S. Packard, jnn., Guide to the Study of Insects, p. 205, Salem, 1870. 9 On the Cecidoinyids of Quercus Oerris, see Fitch, Entomologist, xi. p. 14. 1° See, on C'ecid0my1.'ot oenephifla, Von Haimhoﬂen, Verharzdl. cl. zoolog.-bot. Gas. in Wien, xxv., 801-10. 11 See E-ntomologist’s Jllonth. 1|[ag., iv., 1868, p. 233; and 1'01‘ ﬁgure and description, Entmnologist, xi. p. 13. 12 A. S. Packard, jun., Our C'0mmon Insects, p. 203, Salem, U.S., 1873. On the Hessian ﬂy, Ceciolomyia destructor, Say, the May brood of which produces swellings immediately above the joints of barley attacked by it, see Asa Fitch, The Hessian Fly, Albany, 1847: 1'0‘ printed from T-roms. New York State Agric. Soc., vol. _v1._ 13 J. Winnertz, Bettrag zu etner lllonographie der Sciarmerz, p. 164; Vienna, 1867. _ 14 Asa Fitch, First and Second Rep. on the Noxious. . . . Insects of the State of New York, p. 167, Albany, 1856.