Textbook Twigs

Chambered light brown pith: Eastern Black Walnut (Juglans nigra).

Chambered dark brown pith: Butternut (Juglans cinerea).

Walnut/Butternut. Pith description detail from Woody Plants in Winter by Core and Ammons.

Chambered pith is unusual. Here’s a White Oak (Quercus alba) twig for comparison. Core and Ammons describe Quercus as having “pith moderate, continuous, star-shaped in cross section.” (I could not get a good enough cut for a cross-section.)

But… All these twigs were found on the ground. When I snapped the oaken one, I found something inside.

Larval something. Hymenoptera, I think. 5mm long.

More than one.

This may be how they got into the twig in the first place, or else these are the exit holes of their brethren.