Heteroecus dasydactyli

GALL. — Spindle shaped, covered with long wool. Monothalamous, occasionally bithalamous. Cylindrical, with a constricted base and an apex which is long in one variety, the tip often curved; smooth, some- times with a few, scattered, blunt tubercles; light green when young, turning light straw brown to darker; completely covered by a thick mass of long-threaded wool, light buff yellow tinged with pink when young, golden brown when older, attached only to the slightly projecting base of the gall; the wool deciduous from older galls. Internally almost solid; more porous tissue surrounding a cylindrical cavity extending from the base of the gall hardly more than half way to the tip, with the larval cell in the apical part of the cavity. Singly or in clusters, on twigs of Quercus chrysolepis.

RANGE. — California: San Jacinto Mountains to Dunsmuir.

Ashmead described the galls of this species as ''covered with long, brownish wool", which is correct. But the rest of his description of the gall, type galls which I have seen, and gall material labelled dasydactyli in several collections, match the galls from which I bred Hetercecus melanoderma. The extent of Ashmead's confusion is indicated by his choice of the name dasydactyli for this rather than for the true ''date- seed" gall, melanoderma. The gall and insect both are most nearly related to H. pacificus. One might take pacificus galls to be older galls of this variety with the wool worn off, but when the wool drops from dasydactyli it leaves the gall smooth (unlike melanoderma), and showing the projecting base to which the wool was attached (unlike pacificus) .

Heteroecus dasydactyli variety dasydactyli (Ashmead)

GALL. — Differs from the galls of other varieties in being more often long, elongate spindle-shaped, averaging 15.-30. mm. long by 7.- 12. mm. in diameter, often with a long, slender apex, less often curved than in pygmxus ; usually singly on the twigs.

RANGE. — California: Yosemite Valley, Placerville, Dunsmuir. Probably occurs in the central Sierras north of El Portal, wherever Q. chrysolepis occurs.

Ashmead's adults were bred from January 18 to February 11, probably indoors. I obtained adults at some date after collecting the galls out-of-doors : March 30 at Placerville, April 3 at Dunsmuir. Galls collected in the Yosemite Valley, at a high elevation, while snow still buried most of the small trees, were quite immature on March 26. These Yosemite Valley insects belong, without doubt, to this variety rather than to eriophorus, the variety of the southern Sierras. Eriophortis occurs at El Portal, not twelve miles from the Yosemite Valley, but at an elevation which is a thousand feet lower, and in a locality not nearly as exposed to the severe climate of the higher Sierras. The Yosemite Valley belongs to one faunal area. El Portal to another!

Heteroecus dasydactyli variety eriophorus (Kieffer)

Callirhytis eriophora

GALL. — Very similar to that of variety pygmaeus. Each gall short, ovoid or less often spindle-shaped, with the tapering point short, not usually curved as in pygmaeus, more or less smooth. Usually singly, sometimes a few in a cluster, on twigs.

RANGE.— California: El Portal; Clareniont (Baker); Upland, Pasadena, San Jacinto Mountains. Probably occurs thruout the southern Sierras and their extensions, south of El Portal, except in the San Bernardino and Cuyamaca mountains.

This variety comes very close to variety pygmaeus, but the insects can be separated by the darker rufous brown general color, and by the rugose bottoms of the fovese of eriophorus. Pygmaeus comes from a neighboring but isolated mountain range. I have not seen types of this variety, but Dr. McCracken very kindly compared types of pygmaeus with Baker material of eriophorus at Stanford University, and independently concluded that the two are distinct. I have insects from Pasadena and the San Jacinto Mountains, but only galls from Upland, which is my locality for the same mountain range from which the Baker material came. All of my material is from Quercus chrysolepis. Kieffer records Q. Wislizenii as the host. I have never seen such a gall on Wislizenii ; the only material which I have seen labelled eriophorus bore leaves unmistakably those of chrysolepis; and I doubt very much whether Wislizenii is ever the host for this variety.

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

Reference: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45387508#page/150/mode/1up