Disholcaspis simulata, new species

Hosts: Quercus dumosa, garryana

Gall. Rounded bullet gall with a nipple tip. Monothalamous. Fairly globular, averaging 12.-15. mm. in diameter, some specimens larger or smaller, bearing at the summit a short, blunt point; colored light brick red or yellowish brown, weathering dark; the surface is very rough, but finely so. Internally densely but not compactly woody, likely solid when young, becoming hollow when mature, but with the walls still thick; containing a thin-walled, hard-shelled, entirely loose larval cell averaging 3. mm. in diameter by 4.2 mm. long. Galls attached by a tongue in the concave base; laterally on twigs of white oaks.

RANGE: Oregon, California. Probably wherever oaks occur on the Pacific Coast.

Disholcaspis simulata variety simulata, new variety

GALL. — Mostly colored light brick red to a darker purplish red, becoming lighter and browner on aging, or weathering dark; on twigs of Quercus dumosa.

RANGE. — California: Fallbrook, Sorrento, San Jacinto Mountains, Upland, Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Paso Robles. Probably occurs thru- out the southern Sierras and their extensions, from El Portal south.

Galls collected in February and March, 1920, contained live adults in November and December 1920 and in March 1921 ; several adults had emerged before March 1921. It is not unlikely that it is a year and a half or more after hatching before the adult emerges from the gall. Externally some specimens, duller-colored, of this gall will be confused with less distinctly colored specimens of Disholcaspis plumbella Kinsey; both species occur in enormous abundance on the same host, Quercus dumosa; the adults of the two are very distinct.

Disholcaspis simulata variety vancouverensis, new variety

GALL. — Mostly colored light buff to yellowish brown, in part tinged rose red (not brick red!) when younger, weathering darker; on twigs of Quercus garryana.

RANGE. — Oregon: Roseburg, Grants Pass, Ashland. California: Yreka. North of the other varieties.

Tho structurally the two varieties are very much alike, their distinct color, correlated with the distinct hosts and ranges makes it important to distinguish two separated tendencies in evolution. This variety is likely confined to the geographic area of the more northern Pacific coast called **Vancouveran" by Van Dyke (1919, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer., XII, p. 4) . Another variety occurs on Q. douglasii in central California, and still another distinct variety in the San Bernardino Mountains, but I have not seen adults from galls of these.

- Alfred Charles Kinsey: (1922) Studies of some new and described Cynipidae (Hymenoptera)^©

Reference: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45387570#page/142/mode/1up