Cynips molucrum comb. rest.

Cynips (nubila) molucrum, new species
Agamic form

GALL.—Central core tan or brownish, densely covered with short, hair-like cells, none of which are swollen at tip ; lorg, hair-like spines forming body of gall light straw white, tinged yellow and still more golden tan near tips ; bases of these spines almost never swollen ; these spines wavy for their whole length, and densely set. Galls appearing as loose tangles of hairs.

HOSTS. — Quercus reticulata [rugosa] (types) ; Q. polymorpha. Large-leaved, evergreen, tree forms of white oaks.

RANGE.—Hidalgo: Jacala, •> W, 5000' (types on Q. reticulata. Also on Q. polymorpha). Probably widespread through a central portion of the Eastern Sierra of Mexico, ex- tending north from more northern Hidalgo.

This insect was collected along the Laredo-Mexico City highway, near Jacala, in the northern end of the state of Hidalgo. It may range more or less widely through the Eastern Mexican Sierra; but the complex is represented by the species nigricula in the Eastern Sierra of San Luis Potosi, and by the species lanaris, newly described in the present paper, from the northern end of the Eastern Sierra in Coahuila. The full extensions of these several ranges must, therefore, be determined by further collection. The characters of the present insect, molucrum, are closest to those of its nearest neighbors, C. incompta, C. lanaris, and C. nigricula (see Kinsey, 1936, Ind. Univ. Sci. Ser. 4:248, 251).

The galls of molucrum differ (from those of incompta) in having the central core tan rather than brownish red; and the hair-like processes covering the central core are almost never swollen. The gall of molucrum differs from that of nigricula in having the central core tan (not red-brown), and practically none of the hairs covering this core show swollen tips.

From lanaris, molucrum differs principally in having the central core of the gall covered with short hairs which do not have swollen tips.