A gall (also known as a gall-nut or nut-gall) is a growth caused on plants of various kinds by parasitic mites (Phytoptidae). The galls of commerce are produced by a species of Cynips (Gall-fly) in the tender shoots of the Quercus infectoria, a species of oak abundant in Asia Minor, Syria, Iraq, etc. They are spherical and tubercular, and vary in magnitude from the size of a pea to that of a hazel-nut. White, green, and blue varieties are recognized, the latter kinds being the best. They are inodorous, but are strongly astringent from the tannin and gallic acid which they contain, and which are their chief products. Gall-nuts were extensively used in dyeing and in the manufacture of ink, and they were also frequently used in medicine. They were chiefly imported from Aleppo, Tripoli, and Smyrna. The Chinese galls, or woo-pei-tsze, differ from the foregoing in that they are really an unusually massive kind of crust or cocoon, such as the aphides form on the surface of a plant; the tissues of the plant are not affected. After the opening of the Japanese ports these were imported in considerable quantities to Britain. Research Gall
Abbreviations
Nature
Research Gall