galls
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The Gall
The IPCC’s latest report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, is very, very, very bad. I suppose we can chalk it up to irony that this “atlas of human suffering” comes out in the midst of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The bloody connections between autocracy and petroleum are well established: Putin’s Russia is a…
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Got Galls?
Phylloteras poculum, no common name, is a tiny gall wasp. They lay their eggs on a white oak leaf, and the tree responds by building this structure, which envelops the egg. The larva inside is protected from the elements, including, to a certain extent, predators, and has plant material to eat in there.
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Gall-y
Here’s another gall for your collection: Cypress Twig Gall Midge (Taxodiomyia cupressiananassa). Affects Bald and Pond Cypresses. I like how they almost kinda look like the cones. *** Yesterday, Trump mafia family members Ivanka and Jared tweeted that they were sending in their mail-in ballots, just hours after Trump railed again against mail-in balloting once…
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Fall Galls
You may be-galled out, but I’m certainly not. All of the above were gleaned from under a great white oak, the mother (?) of galls, on October 10. Five species of gall wasps are represented here. Pea Gall (Acraspis pezomachoides). Philonix nigra. Round Bullet Gall Wasp (Disholcaspis quercusglobulus). Andricus wendi. Clustered Midrib Gall Wasp (Andricus…
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Notes on Galls
“Galls are highly specialized plant tissues whose development is induced by another organism.” The relationship is essentially parasitic, says Britain’s Plant Galls: A Photographic Guide, but “few gall-causers seem to cause more than localised, short-term damage to their host plants.” This book continues: “Plant galls can be caused or induced by a very wide variety…
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Back To The Galls
Andricus quercusstrobilanus on swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor). There’s no common name for this gall-forcing wasp species. Note the gap here, and the hollows within. The individual galls brown and shrivel up as they grow. Then they fall to the ground. (I don’t think this is standard for gall wasps in general). Since this tree…
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Even More Galls!
Andricus incertus on swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) acorn. (All the below are on various swamp white oaks as well.) A cluster of Oak Rough Bulletgall Wasp galls (Disholcaspis quercusmamma). Note the ants and bee. Bald-faced Hornet and Asian Lady Beetle, too. In fact, I found several with lady beetles on them. Are the galls…
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More Galls
This is Andricus capillatus, a Cynipidae gall wasp like all these specimens today, on a white oak. Round Bullet Gall (Disholcaspis quercusglobulus), on the same white oak. This magnificent specimen of a tree is on a slope, with one branch sweeping down below eye-level, which is essential when searching for these things. Here’s another Round…
Backyard and Beyond 