Por PATRICIA SIMPSON<\/p>\n
A gall is an abnormal growth caused by certain insects or mites on the leaf, bud, or stem of a plant. A gall may be shaped like a smooth or spiky fruit, a rosette, a cone, a ball of fuzz, a splatter, or a wart, among other things. It may be a bright color (usually a warm color ranging from yellow to red or pink), green, or brown.<\/p>\n
While many insects can cause galls (aphids, midges, flies, to name a few), gall wasps (Family Cynipidae) are fairly common perpetrators. At Mission Trails, the most famous is the Live Oak Apple Gall Wasp (Amphibolips quercuspomiformis<\/em>).<\/p>\n If you ever find yourself wondering why you are seeing an apple growing on the stem of a Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia<\/em>), you\u2019ll know you just found a gall! If you check the leaves of the same tree, you may find a tiny pumpkin looking growth caused by another cynipid wasp, the Pumpkin Gall Wasp (Dryocosmus minusculus<\/em>) as seen in this observation: inaturalist.org\/observations\/62172417<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this case, the small insect lays an egg on the surface of a leaf. The larva\u2019s secretions will change the genetic growth of the leaf to create a small gall, where the grub will feed and grow, sheltered from most predators. After a while, it will be time for the larva to pupate. An adult will emerge from the gall the following spring and the cycle will go on.<\/p>\n Live oaks are not the only plants sporting galls. At Mission Trails, you may find rosettes created by a midge on Arroyo Willow (Salix lasiolepis<\/em>), blisters on leaves of Mulefat (Baccharis salicifolia<\/em>) engineered by a mite, or a bright red disc on a leaf of a Scrub Oak (Quercus berberidifolia<\/em>) manufactured by another cynipid wasp.<\/p>\n So, while on the trails in MTRP, make sure to look closely at the plants to find these little engineering treasures we call galls.<\/p>\n To find many examples of galls, visit the Galls of California project on iNaturalist (inaturalist.org\/observations?project_id=1335<\/u>) and explore the species list. You can also learn more by listening to the soothing voice of the great David Attenborough and watch the amazing BBC footage on YouTube (youtube.com\/watch?v=CzXccvoJThI<\/a>). For help identifying galls, visit the Gallformers website (gallformers.org\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u2014Patricia Simpson is a trail guide at Mission Trails Park.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By PATRICIA SIMPSON A gall is an abnormal growth caused by certain insects or mites on the leaf, bud, or stem of a plant. A gall may be shaped like a smooth or spiky fruit, a rosette, a cone, a ball of fuzz, a splatter, or a wart, among other things. It may be a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":232607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"iNat observation: Pumpkin Gall Wasp","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}