WOOL SOWER GALL Callirhytis seminator (Harr.)

The wool sower is composed of a large number of small hairy galls attached to a common point on twigs of the white oak, Quercus alha, thus forming a compact woolly mass. [Subfigure] A represents a single gall.

Color: white, often tinged red, turning brown.

Cynips seminator

One of our smallest gall-flies may be called Cynips seminator, or the sower. She lays a great number of eggs in a ring-like cluster around the small twigs of the white oak, and her punctures are followed by the growth of a rough or shaggy reddish gall, as large sometimes as a walnut. When this is ripe, it is like brittle sponge in texture, and contains numerous little seed-like bodies, adhering by one end around the sides of the central twig. These seeming seeds have a thin and tough hull, of a yellowish white color; they are egg-shaped, pointed at one end, and are nearly one eighth of an inch long. The gall-insects live singly, and undergo their transformations, within these seeds ; after which, in order to come out, they gnaw a small hole in the hull, and then easily work their way through the spongy ball wherein they are lodged.

Callirhytis seminator

Quercus alba

Gall appears early July, plate 2, 8. Flies the last of June.

C seminator Harris

Harris. Insects etc. p. 548; Fitch. Rep. 11, No. 315; O. Sack.. Proc. etc. 1, 69, No. 21 ; Walsh. Proc. etc. II. p. 465 (at the top); (male female; Q. alba).

I had expressed some doubts about the identity of the specimens obtained by me from these galls, with those described by Fitch, as he says that the thorax of the female is cinnamon-red. Mr. Walsh confirmed my doubts, venturing even the supposition that the gall-fly described by Fitch was a guest-gall-fly. I believe now to have found the solution of the difficulty. Having examined my specimens recently, after a lapse of several years, I find that the thorax of all the female specimens has become reddish, whereas that of the male specimens has remained black. It seems probable, therefore, that Dr. Fitch had rather old specimens before him when drawing his description. C. seminator belongs to the genus Andricus Hartig.

Callirhytis seminator

A globular or elongated woolly or spongy white mass often tinged with spots of pink, 20-30 mm. in diameter, consisting of numerous slender fusiform bodies attached by one end to a common point on the twig —probably a bud gall morphologically. Each seed-like body contains one larval cell and the distal part bears the white filaments. Occurs on trees of Q. alba, starting about the middle of May, the adults emerging June 29-July 12.

Callirhytis seminator

Quercus alba, michauxii
Stem galls, detachable
Oak Seed Gall. Wool Sower. Globular, 20 mm in dia, white with pink spots. May. Many-celled.

Quercus prinus [montana]
Stem galls, detachable
Oak Seed Gall. Wool Sower. Globular, 20 mm in dia, white with pink spots at apex of seed-like bodies, in May-June.

[Photo caption]

137. On Q alba. Oak Seed Gall. Also on Q michauxii, prinus [montana]. Adults emerge in late June after which the gall dries up.

138. On Q alba, Fune Park IN. June 18 on same tree with the oak seed gall, Callirhytis seminator. Adults (all males emerged July 2-12. Interpreted as an abnormal specimen of that species.

Callirhytis seminator

white or pinkish, woolly