Melikaiella ostensackeni n. sp.
sexgen

[Pujade-Villar define this as a new species and don't formally synonymize it with Callirhytis quercus modesta, but this is the de facto result--C q modesta is a nomen dubius with no specimens and later specimens assigned to that species are determined as M ostensackeni.]

Hosts: Quercus rubra

Gall: The galls are hard small papillose or cone-like clusters on the upper side of leaves, projecting unequally and usually so crowded as to form a confluent mass of pustule-like elevations. Inferiorly the leaf is not deformed

Range: WI

Biology: Galls develop in May-June and mature in June-July. Adults start to emerge in July.

[See paper for photos of galls corroborated with adult IDs.]

Callirhytis modesta

Quercus coccinea, falcata, ilicifolia, imbricaria, marilandica, palustris, rubra, texana [buckleyi], velutina
Leaf galls, integral
Hard, confluent parenchyma thickenings projecting on both sides of leaf in June.

[Photo caption]

265. On Q rubra. Also on Q ilicifolia, coccinea, velutina, imbricaria, marilandica, falcata, texana [buckleyi]. Adults emerged June 27 (IL), June 17-19 (DC).

In the box of Bassett cynipid types in the American Entomological Society the type of Cynips papula Bassett, a synonym of modesta, is a female of Ceroptres sp., a guest fly. A pinned specimen in another case marked "cotype" is the maker of the gall and has now been made the type. This is in spite of the fact that the original description of papula was drawn from specimens of two genera and combined the head and thorax of the guest with the abdomen and wing of the maker.

Callirhytis modesta (Osten Sacken).
Cynips modesta Osten Sacken, Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila., vol. 1, 1861, pp 65-6.
Cynips papula Bassett, Canad. Ent., vol. 13, 1881, p 107.
C. modesta was described from three females from an irregular hard protuberance on both sides of leaf of red oak, the flies emerging in late June at Washington DC. In the Museum of Comparative Zoology the type flies are gone from the pins, and the type gall looks like a fragment of the gall of papula Bassett, whose types the writer has seen at Philadelphia.
C papula was described from a few females from a similar gall on red and black oak, the flies beginning to emerge July 12 in Connectict. The only material of the adults of papula available for comparative study has been a fly reared by the writer from the characteristic gall on the leaves of red oak at Medina, New York (the gall contained pupae on July 2), and flies determined by Gillette from Iowa. The writer has seen the old galls at Rosslyn, VA, and at Hugo, OK, and taken the fresh galls many times in the Chicago area, where they were very common in 1917 and contained pupae on July 16. Thus the structure of the gall, the host oak, and the known facts of the biology correspond closely, for one would expect the flies to emerge two weeks earlier at Washington, and it seems propable that modesta and papula are but two names for one species.

Cynips quercus modesta n. sp.

Quercus rubra. Red Oak. Small, irregular, hard protuberance, projecting on both sides of the leaf and not differing from it in color. Diameter about 0.15.

The two specimens in my possession are a little longer than broad, rising abruptly on the upper side of the leaf, more subconical on the opposite side. The substance is hard, almost woody. I cut one of my specimens open and found that notwithstanding its small size, it contained five hollows, each producing the comparatively large fly. Three of the flies had already escaped from this gall, the two others, although perfectly formed, were still in their cells; a third specimen I reared from the other gall (end of June). On the whole, this gall has so little peculiar and characteristic about it, that I apprehend it will be somewhat difficult to identify it, unless by the fly.