galls
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Galls in Winter
The leaves of this White Oak in Green-Wood have refused to fall. They held up to Sandy, the Nor’easter a week later, and all the rest of the winter so far. Actually, some oaks are tenacious leaf-holders, only shedding them just before, or just as, new leaf growth begins to bud.So I got to take…
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Gall-ish
Plenty of oaks yet to turn color in the Hudson Highlands, 60 miles north of Brooklyn. And where there are oaks, there are galls. Here’s one I came across up there recently:Not sure what species is inside here. To re-cap, galls are formed by the interaction of animal and plant. Irritated by wasp, mite, aphid,…
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Hedgehog Gall
Hedgehog gall, caused by a tiny cynipid wasp, Acraspis erinacei, on leaves of White Oak (Quercus alba) in Green-Wood Cemetery.There are three to five larval cells in each of these galls. Only female adults will emerge from these in the late fall, and lay eggs (without mating) on leaf buds. These eggs over-winter, hatching in…
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Willow, willow
Turns out there are several small, shiny blue-black beetles out there that devour leaves. The Blue or Cobalt Milkweed beetle, the Grape Flea beetle, and the imported Willow Leaf Beetle, which is what I think this is. Plagiodera versicolor.These shiny critters were not on willow leaves, as far as I could tell, but along the…
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Green-Wood
Fringetree. Galls clustering on a hickory. The leaves of one of that cluster of Common Persimmon trees. A Great Egret being photogenic as always. Water Lily in the Valley Water; there were only a few blossoms yet. American Lady butterflies amid a horde of honey and bumble bees.
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Galls and Crane Fly
A two-fer in this shot of a Witch Hazel leaf:This is a boom year for the Witch Hazel Cone Gall-maker (Hormaphis hamamelidis), an aphid. Read more about these tiny insects and how they force the American Witch-Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) to create these protective cone forms around their young. For more about the endlessly fascinating galls…
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Field Notes: Galls II
Today is Oak Apple Day, celebrating the restoration of Charles II, who famously hid in an oak during the English Civil War. Pity he got away. Anyway, this post is about oaks, oak galls, and/or oak gall wasps, whichever come first, not my vigorous and patriotic anti-royalism. When last we discussed galls, I kept the…
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Field Notes: Galls
Happy Arbor Day. Love the trees…like a gall… Galls are abnormal growths of plant material caused by the invasion of an alien entity, typically insects and mites. The gall wasps may be the most famous of the gall-forcing insects. Some galls are balls, some are nut-like, some are leaf-spiky — like the ones above, found…
Backyard and Beyond 