Galls, Diseases, and Pests - Cabbage Bud Gall Midge
Lonicerae russoi
The Cabbage Bud Gall is a leafy rosette. While it appears to be one gall, it is actually a cluster of many smaller galls, each gall having a number of white hairs in the center. There is a photo of this gall in the 2007 version of Ronald A. Russo's book about California galls, but until recently it had not been named. The scientific name it now has is Lonicerae russoi, named in honor of Ronald Russo. The host plant is Pink Honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula).
While these galls are commonly found at the tip of a branch, they can also be found along the branch at leaf nodes.
Here is an example of a gall located at a leaf node (on the right) rather than at the tip of the vine.
When galls form at the leaf nodes along an established stem, it appears to me that it sometimes causes the distal parts of the stem to have abnormalities. These abnormalities are not galls, but they do involve leaves grown in clusters which sometimes recurve on themselves.
Zoomed in, you can see that the origin and tip of this curved branch are both directly above my thumb.
This stem has three dense leaf clusters without any obvious galls.
A second set of clustered leaves.
Here is another recursive stem and clustered leaves. I am holding the stem and the tip of the shoot winds back around to the left.
The underside of the leaf cluster. This recursive branch is interesting in that it seems to be putting out roots. (More views in the following three photos.)
The stem is coming into the photo on the right, and the stem tip is on the bottom center of the photo.
I had read that the L. russoi larvae pupate in late February, so I decided to see what they looked like. This is one gall out of a cluster.
Since each of the larva are in a separate gall, they can develop at different rates. The larva on the left seems to me to be further along in its development.