Cynips echinus agamic form
Holcaspis douglasii
Dryophanta douglasii
Diplolepis douglasii
Disholcaspis douglasii
Cynips quercus echinus
Cynips echinus
Andricus speciosus
Dryophanta speciosa
Diplolepis speciosa
Dryophanta echinus
Diplolepis echina
Dryophanta echina
Gall: Spherical to squash-shaped, hard and crystalline leaf galls, in most varieties bearing short and blunt projecting tips. Strictly or irregularly spherical, or a regular or irregular, inverted, truncate cone; up to 9.0 mm. in diameter, in most varieties bearing short, stout, often crooked and irregular, spiny projections which are in length not half the diameter of the body of the gall; the surfaces of the galls naked or with a puberulence, whitish or light green or pinkish when young, soon becoming (in most varieties) rose violet to coral red in color; internally filled with a compact mass of crystalline material containing a very few branched fibers, the galls soft as rubber when moist, hard and brittle as glass when dry; a more or less complete cavity in the center of the gall below the larval cell and near the very base of the gall, this cavity with the larval cell making the gall appear, superficially, bithalamous ; the larval cell in- separable, embedded in the compact material of the gall or rarely (particularly in immature galls) held in place by fine, silky, radiating fibers; irregular in shape, up to 4.0 mm. in length, sometimes central in the gall, usually in the upper part of the gall directly under the epidermis, the cell centrally or asymmetrically placed, sometimes extending in part into one of the spiny projections. The gall wholly separable, attached by a point to a vein, usually on the under surfaces, sometimes on the upper surfaces of leaves of Pacific Coast white oaks, Quercus lobata , Q. douglasii , Q. dumosa, Q. turbinella, and Q. durata.
RANGE .—California, Shasta County to the Mexican border, probably in Lower California.
There are few cynipid galls more abundant than those produced by the agamic forms of echinus in the autumn in California. These galls are confined to white oaks, and do not occur north of Shasta County.
The young galls of the agamic forms first appear, at least north of the Sierra Madre, early in the summer; the larvae are mature within a couple of months, and the adults mature at various times from then on, emergence occurring in December or January. It should be noted that in mid-winter, in most of the areas involved, freezing temperatures are rare (varieties echinus and douglasii ) , while the colder days and snow storms of other parts of the region are intermingled with warm days when emerging insects might easily become active.
[Kinsey goes on to describe 6 varieties of the agamic form of this species; see paper for details]
