Disholcaspis fungiformis, new species

[only female described]

GALLS.-A very curious cluster (Figs. 37 to 39) of brownish, mushroom-shaped,twig galls. Each gall is small, composed of three distinct parts: a solid top which is abroad, flattened cone 7-10 mm. in diameter but barely 4 mm. in height, the upper surface irregularly pitted, buff-brown, with the apex dark brown; a small, solid stem not 2 mm. in diameter and 2 or 3 mm. long connecting this cap with the base which contains the larval cell; a base which is a broad, inverted cone, the apex being the point of attachment on the twig, with an irregular, flaring, thin, leaf-like cup extending from this base up and around the cap of the gall, resembling an enormously developed cup at the base of a mushroom. Each gall is monothalamous, the larval cell occupying most of the basal part of the gall, the cell distinct from but tightly enclosed in the surrounding tissue. On the twigs of a variety of Quercus virginiana [presumably this refers to Quercus fusiformis].

RANGE.-Texas: Tiger Mills, Burnett Co. (Schaupp); San Carlos (in Coll.Gray Herb.).

The gall is the most curiously complicated structure I have seen among cynipid productions. It is possible that it is of quite a different form when young and fresh. I find additional specimens of these; galls on oak material in the collections of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. This material was collected in November 1831 and is from San Carlos, Texas, which is over four hundred miles from the locality of the type material.

The general shape of this gall is very different from that of most of the species of Disholcaspis, but the location and character of the larval cell is typical for that genus. The insect is a true Disholcaspis.

Disholcaspis fungiformis

Quercus virginiana, geminata
Stem galls, detachable
A cluster of mushroom-shaped galls, the top a flattened cone, 7-10 mm in dia and 4 mm high above a broad base in which is the larval cell. TX. Entered from literature.

[Photo caption]
A cluster of two-story galls; the upper part a flattened cone, 7-10 mm in dia and 4 mm high; the lower part containing the larval cell. On Q virginiana in TX [this apparently refers to Quercus fusiformis before it was separated as a distinct species].