Xanthoteras eburneum

Quercus reticulata [rugosa], gambelii, subturbinella [turbinella]
Stem galls
Detachable
Fig 52 and 133.

Quercus subturbinella [turbinella]
Leaf galls
Detachable
Fig 52 and 133.

Biorhiza ? eburnea (Bassett) Incertae sedis

Dryophanta eburneus Bassett, 1890: 70.
Dryophanta similis Bassett, 1890: 71. (Sinonimia en Weld, 1951: 625).
Dryophanta simillima Dalla Torre, 1893: 54. (Sinonimia en Weld, 1951: 625).
Dryophanta glabra Gillette, 1894: 237. (Sinonimia en Beutenmüller, 1907: 466).
Diplolepis eburnea (Bassett) Dalla Torre y Kieffer, 1910: 368.
Xanthoteras eburneum (Bassett) Weld, 1951: 625.
Biorhiza eburnea (Bassett) Melika y Abrahamson, 2002: 167.

Diplolepis eburnea

The galls of this species were described as from the leaves of an unknown oak in southern Utah. The writer has collected them on Quercus gambelii, undulata, grisea. They sometimes occur on young twigs as well as on both sides of the leaves. They have been observed at Garden of the Gods (Hopkins U. S. 10781m), Wetmore, West Cliff, La Veta, Trinidad, and Morley, Colo.; Raton, Wagon Mound, Shoemaker, Las Vegas, Hot Springs, Glorieta, Rito de los Frijoles near Buckman, Tijeras, Magdalena, and Kingston, N. Mex.; Hackberry, Ashfork, Flagstaff, Williams, and Grand Canyon, Ariz. At Wetmore the galls could have been collected by the quart on leaves of young shoots of gambelii and contained adults on October 6, 1921. They emerged from early December to January 14.

Dryophanta eburneus, n. sp.

Galls round, smooth, polished, resembling old ivory. They are from one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, growing in great numbers on both the upper and under surface of oak leaves of a species I have not yet determined. The galls were sent me by A. H. Siler from southern Utah. Sometimes the galls are so crowded that they lose their globular form. They are strongly attached to the leaves and the base of the gall is usually grooved by the vein on which it grows. There are often twenty or thirty galls on a single leaf, one-third of which will be on the underside. They are hard and rather thick shelled and filled with fine silvery white hairs that radiate from the single larval cell that is attached to the base of the gall.

From several thousand galls I have reared less than fifty gall-flies. These are all females.

Xanthoteras eburneum
(Biorhiza eburnea)*
Brown-melon-gall wasp
[Page 177]

Hosts: Quercus gambelii, rugosa, turbinella

These glossy, glabrous, monothalamous galls occur in rows all around the stems of the host tree.