Cynips incomptum, n. comb.

Andricus incomptus, new species

Host: Quercus sp [Quercus grisea added as a placeholder]

Gall.--A mass of golden brown, straggling wool, containing a spherical core which is set with a dense, rich reddish-brown pubescence. Monothalamous. The covering hairs are 5 mm or more in length, brittle, and rather wavy, forming an "uncombed" mass about 15 mm in diameter. The central core is spherical, averaging 7 mm in diameter, and is covered with a very dense pubescence of dark reddish-brown hairs less than 1 mm long; this covering is quite distinct from the longer, fewer hairs which form the main covering of the gall. The walls of the central core are almost 1 mm in thickness, and the rest of the core is taken up with the large larval cell. Singly, or more often in groups of two, on the under surfaces (less often on the upper surfaces) of the leaves of a species of Quercus.

The gall is very distinct.

Range: Mexico, San Luis, Potosi

Cynips nubila variety incompta
agamic form

Andricus incomptus
Diplolepis nubila err syn Weld

GALL. — The core yellowish to rich reddish russet in color, the spines for the most part yellowish white, the tips colored rich golden yellow; the bases of the spines not at all swollen; on leaves of what at least resembles Quercus reticulata and Q. glaucophylla. Figures 299-300.

RANGE. — Mexico: San Luis Potosi (Palmer coll., types). Sierra de Zacopoaxtla (L. Diguet acc. Houard 1928). Probably confined to an area in more central Mexico. Figure 58.

The galls collected in September were fully grown and the insects far enough along at that time to have matured after collecting. It is not impossible that the more southern varieties of Cynips have only one generation a year, as is certainly true of several of the southern California Cynipidae, and in such a case the growth of incompta may begin much earlier, tho proceeding more slowly, than is the case with the Arizona varieties of nubila.

The leaves with the type material would now appear to represent Quercus reticulata (as restricted in Trelease’s mono- graph of the American Oaks) . I also have galls of what seems to be incompta collected by Bonansea in Mexico (without defi- nite locality) and sent me by Prof. Trotter of Portici, Italy. This material appears to be on Q. glaucophylla , but I cannot be certain of determinations based on so few leaves of such difficult Mexican oaks.

Soon after the original publication of incompta , Beutenmuller, who had never seen the type material, wrote me that it was a synonym of nubila. Weld has recently published this synonomy with the following comments: “The writer has examined both [types] , comparing one directly with a Bassett type of nubila. As the galls were collected in September it is the writer's idea that at that time the nutritive layer had not been all used up and the larva had vitality to transform into an undersized adult but not enough to chew its way out of the hard gall. Never having been exposed to light and open air it is much paler than flies that emerge normally. Had it darkened up normally the two adjacent spots near the apex of the wing might have become connected into one double one as is the case in nubila , a series of which shows considerable difference in the amount of fusion that has taken place in the spots, due either to fluctuating variation or to the length of time that has elapsed or amount of exposure to light since emergence from the gall. If a nubila wing were bleached somewhat it would present the condition seen in incomptus.”

My own distinction of nubila and incompta is herein embodied in comparative descriptions, an examination of which should show that it will take more than bleaching to turn nubila into incompta . While admitting the inadequacies of two specimens cut from old galls, and while admitting that fresh material may be larger and darker than the types, I cannot believe that the surface of the mesonotum, the length of the parapsidal grooves, the surfaces of the mesopleuron, the hairy areas on the abdomen, the size of the areolet, or other such distinctive characters are abnormal in the type material of incompta. The galls of incompta and nubila , while similar, are certainly distinct in color and, more significantly, in the shapes of the bases of the spines.

The types of incompta come from a locality removed from the known range of nubila by eight hundred miles of Mexican desert and mountain country. This alone should have invited careful comparisons before it was concluded that the two names are synonyms.