Amphibolips cinerea

Cynips quercus cinerea

Cynipidae

Amphibolips

Quercus incana

Alabama

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Louisiana

Mississippi

North Carolina

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Texas

Virginia

Quercus myrtifolia

Quercus pumila

Cynipid galls of the eastern United States

The species of Amphibolips and their galls

Amphibolips quercuscinerea

Cynips quercus cinerea n. sp.

The Upland Willow Oak Apple Gall

Host--Quercus cinerea [incana]

Galls.--Large, perfectly spherical galls attached to the twigs and limbs, of a dark crimson color mottled with small spots of a lighter color. A single kernel in the centre held in place by dense, brownish, spongy filaments. Diameter one and one-fourth to one and one-half inch.

The summer galls will probably produce the two gendered form.

On the CYNIPIDOUS GALLS of Florida (1881)

Amphibolips cinerea

Cynips quercus cinerea

Gall. Attached to the twigs and limbs of blue-jack or upland willow oak (Quercus brevifolia [incana]). Large, spherical or elongate oval, with a small nipple at the apex and of a dark crimson, mottled with small spots of a lighter color. The outer shell is rather thick, and when old it is brown, hard and brittle. Internally there is a central larval cell held in position by very dense brownish spongy filaments. Length 24 to 35 mm; width 20 to 30 mm.

Habitat: FL

Amphibolips cinerea

Globose or ovate, slightly nippled, dark, crimson with lighter mottlings and becoming brown, thick-shelled twig gall with filament-supported larval cell, length 2.5 to 3.5 cm, diameter 2 to 3 cm, on Q brevifolia [incana].

Key to American Insect Galls

Amphibolips quercuscinerea

Quercus cinerea [incana]
Stem galls, detachable
A large oak apple, 20-30 mm in dia in spring; usually wrinkles in drying. Type host.

[Photo caption]
On Q cinerea [incana]. Adults in late April.

Amphibolips quercuscinerea (Ashmead 1881)

Hosts: Quercus myrtifolia

[Sexual generation bud galls found in Florida in the spring.]

Using gall wasps on oaks to test broad ecological concepts

Quercus pumila added tentatively as a host based on its close relationship to the type host Quercus incana (formerly cinerea) and [this unconfirmed observation](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/112334443). 

Price et al list this as a spring sexual generation on Quercus myrtifolia, but there are no male descriptions in the literature and this is a novel host relationship. The gall resembles photographs of [Amphibolips spinosa agamic](https://www.gallformers.org/gall/998) galls in Nicholls et al, which is known from Quercus myrtifolia, suggesting Price et al may have mistaken the gall's ID.

Gallformers ID Notes