Cynips quercus strobilana, n. sp. (as yet not reared)

On Quercus prinos, var bicolor [Quercus bicolor]. Large gall, at the tip of twigs, consisting of a number of wedge-shaped bodies, fastened by their poitned ends to a common centre. Diameter about an inch and a half. C q. stobilana [sic] (as yet not reared)

These specimens measure rather more than an inch and a half in diameter and look somewhat like the cones of some kinds of pine, for instance, of the scrub-pine, as they consist of a number from 20 to 25 or more of wedge-shaped bodies, closely packed together, with their pointed ends attached to a common centre. These wedges are hard and corky and break off very easily when the gall is dry. Each of them contains a hollow kernel with a plump, large larva inside. This gall is evidently produced by the sting of the insect on the single leaves of a bud, each leaf growing into the shape of a wedge.

Cynips strobilana O S

Globular cluster, up to 35 mm. in diameter, at end of twig, consisting of 25 or more wedge-shaped bodies attached by their tapering bases to a common point on twig. Hard, breaking off easily when mature, brown, monothalamous, dropping in the fall. Some flies emerge in the spring for at least three seasons. On Q. bicolor and macrocarpa. 84.

Adleria strobilana

Quercus alba, bicolor, macrocarpa
Stem galls, detachable
Terminal cluster of angular galls in fall, dropping when mature. Rare on Quercus alba.

Quercus lyrata
Stem galls, detachable
Terminal cluster of angular galls dropping in fall or remaining attached.

[Photo caption]
On Q lyrata Adults out the second spring.

On Q macrocarpa

Galls picked up on ground under Q bicolor. Adults emerged the second and third springs in April.

Cynips strobilana Osten Sacken

Galls of this species were collected on Quercus bicolor at River Grove and New Lenox, IL. ; at Ironton, Mo. ; and at Great Falls, Va. They were found on Q. macrocarpa at Algonquin, IL., at Fort Worth, Tex., and Miss Howe collected them at Ithaca, N. Y. William Beutenmueller writes that they were very abundant in the fall of 1922 at Highwood. N. J. Galls collected in Chicago area November 1, 1914, then contained a few adults as well as larvae. When opened April 24, 1916, larvae and living flies were found in about equal numbers. It is inferred that some flies emerge each spring for at least three seasons and Packard records finding an adult and a pupa in galls six years old. Galls were collected on Q. lyrata at Poplar Bluff, Mo., and at Hoxie and Texarkana, Ark., in November, 1917, when the fresh galls were almost solid and cut like cheese and the old galls contained pupae or adults which emerged and died in breeding cage before the middle of the next May.

Cynips quercus strobilana O. Sacken.

The following remarks and description were communicated to me by Baron R. Osten Sacken, for publication in this paper: "In my paper entitled 'Additions and Corrections,' etc., (Proc. Entom. Soc. 1862) I described a gall under the name of C. q. strobilana (1. c. p. 254), the producer of which was at that time unknown to me. Many months afterwards, I obtained the fly, by cutting the dry galls open. It belongs to the genus Cynips in the restricted sense (agamous according to Hartig), and I let its description follow;