norikonbu's Favorites

If I'm understanding what I'm seeing, the first photo is of an oak (Quercus kelloggii) stem, ruptured as wasp larvae
develop.

The second photo is of an individual wasp larval chamber. (These are still attached to the stem in the first photo).

Such amazing galls!

Some are calling this Cynips heldae, I think (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/175393238). But Russo locates that one on stem buds and characterizes it as "spiny", which these here don't seem to be.

Gall on golden chinquapin (Chrysolepis chrysophylla)(the reddish one).
Also spikey fruit and old flowers.
If you zoom in, there are lots of small round galls blending in, in addition to the pea-size reddish one.

On 10/3/74 James Griffin vouchered a discovery of Quercus palmeri in the Clear Creek area of San Benito County. At that time this was a new, isolated, northerly station for this unusual species. Griiffin returned about 3 weeks later with his botanist friend and CA oak maven John Tucker, and together they collected a number of additional vouchers. At that time Q. palmeri went by the name Q. dunni (after the remarkable late-1800's naturalist & collector George Dunn, see Jepson's brief bio here). Later Griffin & Tucker published a 1976 Madroño note on the newly discovered station. Motivated by the above, and a prior interest in this species, I was eager to look for these Palmer Oaks...and joined Joyce Gross & Alice Abela to search for them, almost 50 years after Griffin & Tucker's voucher collections.

After planning and walking a route with a number of promising point locations suggested by the Madroño note & voucher labels, we seemed to have struck-out on our "best candidate sites" and were becoming somewhat discouraged. But crossing a creek after the road we were on faded out, Joyce came upon a smaller trail following the SW side of the creek, and within a few hundred feet there were 3 or 4 clumps of Palmer Oaks growing on the steep bank above the trail :-). Note that zooming-in on the iNat inset map above, the observation icon appears to the NE of the trail shown there...but that's an artifact of errors in either my camera's GPS reading, the rendering of the trail on the map, or both. The rough location is correct, but the trail follows the SW side of the creek there...and the Palmer Oaks are rooted along the eroding upper edge of the tall bank just SW of the trail.

Palmer Oak is thought to be a relict species that had a more widespread and continuous distribution in Pleistocene and Pliocene times. Except for a few areas in southern California, northern Baja California, and Arizona (see SEINet map here), nowadays it is usually found in small isolated stands of a few individuals, which are often clonal groupings...and these stands are typically many miles apart (e.g. ten, twenty, or much more!). One particular clonal colony growing high on a granitic summit in the Jurupa Hills of Riverside County, CA has been estimated to be 13,000+ years old in this 2009 paper.

The plants here were growing in 3 or 4 "clumps" of scrub to small tree-like stature — each with one to several small, clustered, multiple trunks. They appeared less clonal in growth form than other Palmer Oak groupings I've seen...but may have been clonal. I have no idea how old these plants currently are, but they may have difficulty persisting for a truly long time into the future at this site — as their roots are being undercut by erosion of the bank above the old jeep road/trail and adjacent creek. This may be exacerbated in part by human impacts...recent motorcycle tracks were apparent, and a large branch had been cut off and was lying by the trail. (Some branches were overhanging the trail...and Palmer Oaks are notoriously rigidly-branched with leaves that are viciously stiff & spine-margined!)

In addition to the Jepson eFlora treatment for Q. palmeri, more info is available on the SEINet page here.

@graysquirrel @yerbasanta @michaelvoeltz @megachile @norikonbu @nancyasquith

Seems to be a good year for these!

similar observations here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/181851193
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/181291738
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/134953165
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/182127951

On Quercus agrifolia, Coast live oak

Dozens of identical-looking adult gall wasps crawling on Dryocosmus dubiosus galls, some with exit holes. Galls present on this same Coast Live Oak include (tentative IDS): Aceria mackiei, Dasineura silvestrii, and lots of Dryocosmus dubiosus.

This observation is for the adult wasps; could be newly-emerging Dryocosmus dubiosus, or they could be another species, perhaps parasitic.

These look like they want to be C. douglasii but seem too thin walled at top and too stalky at the bottom. Similar looking observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136453193 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142877075