Callirhytis vacciniifoliae, new species

Gall
A thin-shelled, globular gall with a central kernel held in place by radiating filaments. It closely resembles the gall produced by Andricus inanis (Osten-Sacken), but it is generally smaller in size and darker in color. The gall measures from 0.5 to just over 1 inch in diameter and is found on Quercus vacciniifolia in California.

Four specimens were reared on October 16 and December 4, 1884, from galls collected by Prof. J. H. Comstock at Truckee, California, on Quercus vacciniifolia.

Trichoteras vaccinifoliae

Quercus chrysolepis, vacciniifolia
Leaf galls [sic], oak apples
Thin-walled oak apple, dia 25 mm, veiny. Mono.

Diplolepis vaccinifoliae

Callirhytis vaccinifoliae

This species was described from Truckee, Calif., from Q. vaccinifoliae the flies emerging October 16 and December 4. The writer collected galls at Tahoe City on August 7, 1922. Some of the galls were still fresh, pale yellowish-green with beautiful purple spots or streaks shaped like the branching pigment cells in a frog's epidermis, and best seen against the light. Most however were now dry, and contained either larvae or pupae. After the galls are picked and dried the adults do not seem to be able to chew through the thin outer wall. Living adults, which agree with the type, were cut out of the galls on November 10. Messrs. Burke and Hartman collected galls on vaccinifolia at Pine Crest, Tuolumne County, from which adults emerged December 13.

Koebele collected a similar gall on Q. chrysolepis in Placer County, Calif., and reared a similar fly. The writer collected galls (and cut out a living fly November 10) at Canyonville, Oreg., and also at Wolf Creek, and on the road to Oregon Caves above Holland, and also at Scott Bar, Calif.

Trichoteras vaccinifoliae
(Andricus vaccinifoliae)*

Hosts: Quercus chrysolepis, vacciniifolia

This cynipid wasp induces round, paper-thin, hollow, monothalamous oak-apple galls on the stems of canyon live oaks and huckleberry oaks.