Pulsegleaner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
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- Lower Hudson Valley, New York
Reminds me of how, when I was a kid, in fall, when the oak leaves (and hence, the oak galls) began to fall off the trees onto the ground, there was a kind (not totally sure, but I think it may have been a form of the Oak Apple gall) that, if we saw one that was totally intact, we put it back carefully, because we thought it was a fairy football (it had the same pointed tips on the ends as a foot ball) and they needed it to play (when we found a damaged or broken one, which was much more common we would say the fairies must have played too hard and broken then ball).
Actually, due to their shapes and colors, a LOT of the types of glass we had we thought were fairy related thing. Oak cherry galls from the catkins (little fuzzy spheres in shades of pinks through reds and purples) were Fairy peaches. Another was their popcorn (looked sort of like a corn kernels), Fairy beachballs (the other kind of apple gall, there really big hollow kind with virtually no wall to it), fairy buns (little spotted leaf kind found on pin oaks).
Then, of course, there were the blood galls (officially called rough bullet galls), with their bright red juice. I always assumed those were the kind you used to make it (it isn't, though we do have that kind as well.) and that crown gall ink must come in red as well as black (this fell apart when I actually dried some and realized that the red turns an ordinary brown once it oxidizes.)
Actually, due to their shapes and colors, a LOT of the types of glass we had we thought were fairy related thing. Oak cherry galls from the catkins (little fuzzy spheres in shades of pinks through reds and purples) were Fairy peaches. Another was their popcorn (looked sort of like a corn kernels), Fairy beachballs (the other kind of apple gall, there really big hollow kind with virtually no wall to it), fairy buns (little spotted leaf kind found on pin oaks).
Then, of course, there were the blood galls (officially called rough bullet galls), with their bright red juice. I always assumed those were the kind you used to make it (it isn't, though we do have that kind as well.) and that crown gall ink must come in red as well as black (this fell apart when I actually dried some and realized that the red turns an ordinary brown once it oxidizes.)