The MISTLETOE--Anglo-Saxon, _mistelta_ (_Viscum album_)--is so well known that it would appear strange that so familiar a plant has been but little employed in mediæval art, did we not remember that its pagan associations had placed it under a ban. The only example of its use that has come under our observation is in one of the spandrels of a tomb in Bristol Cathedral. The natural growth will be found portrayed in M. B. 270; W. H. H., Plate A, Fig. 3; P. F. 88. The lightness of the plant, and its association with Christmas, seem features that render a knowledge of it desirable to the ornamentist. It appears to us a plant capable of very extensive use in the various developments of decorative art. We need only mention a few--the backs of playing-cards, earthenware, muslins, chintzes, wall-papers. Many other uses will, no doubt, readily suggest themselves to our readers.
The OAK (_Quercus robur_), while perhaps our best-known indigenous tree, from its wealth of legendary, religious, and historic associations, has also been one of the favourite subjects of the ornamentist, being abundantly found in carving, stencilling, draperies, glass, &c., both in England and on the Continent,
throughout the whole range of the Decorated and Perpendicular styles of Gothic, and the corresponding periods in France, Spain, and Germany, and also afterwards in the various modifications of the Renaissance. To refer at any length to the varied associations surrounding it would be foreign to our present purpose, though its sacred character in the Druidical rites of the ancient Britons, the importance of its timber for the purposes of the shipwright and architect, the commercial value of the bark for use in tanning, leading to the felling of thousands of trees every year, its use in medicine, the bark being a powerful astringent, and an infusion from the galls so frequently found upon the oak being an excellent antidote in cases of poisoning by the tartrate of antimony, are all points of interest or utility in connection with it. It has also been one of the favourite trees of the poets--Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Wordsworth, and many others, having referred to it in their writings; while to the artist the rugged majesty and vigour of the branches in winter, the brilliant bronze red of the early spring foliage, the deep mass of dark green leaves in summer-time, or the fiery glow it bears when touched by the frosts of advancing winter, render it at all times a beautiful and striking object in the landscape. The galls so generally met with upon the leaves of the oak are caused by a small insect, the _Cynips Quercus-folii_, which, by puncturing the leaf and laying an egg in the wound, causes a diseased and abnormal growth of the part: on cutting one of these galls open the grub will generally be found within. The galls chiefly used in medicine and commerce, though similar in their origin, are the work of another little insect on a different and foreign species of oak.