Gall-Oak
Description. The strong gall-oak, so named from the fruit it bears, doth not grow so large nor high as the other oaks, but shorter and very crooked, with fair spreading branches; on these grow long leaves, very much cut in on the edges, and hoary underneath; this tree flowereth and beareth acorns, as also a round woody substance, which is called a gall, and the timber is of a very hard substance. There are several kinds of gall-oaks, some of them are much shorter than others, bearing leaves more or less cut or jagged on the edges, and producing a greater quantity of galls, and no acorns at all; some bear large galls, others small, some knobbed or bunched, and others smooth; each are of different colours, some white, others red, yellow, and green. Place. These oaks grow frequently in Italy, Spain, and other hot countries. Time. They shoot forth their long catkins or blossoms early in the spring, which fall away for the most part before the leaves appear. The acorns are very seldom ripe before October.
Government and virtues. I shall here explain the use, virtues, and temperament, of the galls of these foreign trees only, as their acorns differ but little from those produced by our English oaks.
The small gall, called omphacitis, is dry in the third degree, and cold in the second; Saturnine, and of a sour harsh nature. It is effectual in drawing together and fastening loose and faint parts, as the overgrowing of the flesh; it expelleth and drieth up rheums and other fluxes, especially those that fall upon the gums, almonds of the throat, and other places of the mouth. The other whiter gall doth also bind and dry, but not so much as the former, having a less quantity of that sour harshness in it; it is good against the dysentery or bloody flux. The decoction of them in water is of a mean astriction, but more powerful in harsh red wine; being sat over, it remedieth the falling of the mother, or the galls being boiled and bruised, and applied to the fundament when fallen, or to any swelling or inflammation, will prove a certain cure. The coals of burned galls being quenched in wine or vinegar, is good to stanch bleeding in any place. They will dye the hair black, and are one of the chief ingredients for making ink; they are likewise used by dyers for making black dye.
The oak-apple is much of the nature of galls, though inferior in quality, but may be substituted for them with success to help rheums, fluxes, and other such-like painful distempers.