Galls, Diseases, and Pests - Crystalline Gall Wasp
Feron crystallinum
These galls were found on Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii).
The bright colors of this gall make it easy to spot!
When the galls start out, they are small and smooth.
Putting out a few 'whiskers'.
Even one little gall is dramatic on its own.
A whole group of the galls are pretty dazzling!
Two of the individual galls.
Then I found this specimen which covered the entire leaf. It was gorgeous--it looked like a flower!
By the end of Fall / beginning of Winter, these Crystalline Galls have deteriorated a lot. But they're still a beautiful color!
Sometimes things just go wrong! While the growths in this photo and the next look a lot like Chinese cherry pork, they are probably just deformed crystalline galls.
Many gall-inducing insects produce more than one generation per year. Those generations can be bisexual or unisexual. Because of that, the galls can be very different from one generation to the next. This crystalline gall is one of the bisexual generation galls.