Apples on Oaks???

Have you ever heard of oak apples? There are a couple such galls, above, on one of my turbinella scrub oaks. Far more visible than mere acorns. Made by a wasp.

Similar little wasps made this gall, which looks like a yarn plaything for a cat.

For an easier close-up, I broke off the twig and brought it indoors. Upon consulting The Google, I found that nationwide there are some 800 different kinds of oak galls and maybe 100 types in Arizona. One article noted: They are formed entirely from the mutated cells of the tree itself, but the spark of their creation comes from an insect. A tiny wasp, no larger than the exposed tip of a ball point pen, lays its egg in newly forming tissue on the tree. Compounds secreted by the larva when it hatches induce the tree to form the gall, which then provides both protection and food for the developing larva until it emerges as a fully formed adult.

Except, I discovered, that the bridled titmouse, who hangs out with those small generic bird flocks, relishes gall residents!

I don't know if this gall is the same as or different from the pretty pink fluff. The references note that wasps lay their eggs when leaves are just emerging in spring; this photo was taken in October last year and the pink gall in mid-September, if that is any clue.

Here are a couple of well weathered, long abandoned stem galls; among the goodies The Google delivered was the site for an art print of a stem gall! From my searches, I also learned 1) that oak galls were the basis for black ink in the Middle Ages in Europe and for black dye in pre- Columbian America, 2) that they had/have uses in herbal medicine, and 3) that my Sson had coauthored a scientific paper on oak galls published in 1999. For the record, his doctoral thesis dealt with galls on willows. Small world, isn't it?

Linkety Link! I just got off the Florida Turnpike with k, whose long trip home is finally finished. You might want to get in the right hand seat & ride with her. Quite a lady! But what I didn't know was that the giant kudzu vine that ate the South had reached the Sunshine State.