Last year i was off-grid camping for a few months and found these a few times, though never even occurred to me to look what tree i found them under.
I live in Southern Ontario, went camping relatively close, only a few hundred kilometres North.
Can anyone tell me just what in God's good graces these are?
And no, i did NOT try and eat one.
Name: Big Bill Livonia Michigan (Zone 6a) If you need to relax, grow plants!!
Oak apple gall.
A small parasitic wasp lays the egg and that structure develops around the insect larva.
I see a few hundred every late summer underneath my 9 mature oak trees.
Orchid lecturer, teacher and judge. Retired Wildlife Biologist. Supervisor of a nature preserve up until I retired.
BigBill said: Oak apple gall.
A small parasitic wasp lays the egg and that structure develops around the insect larva.
I see a few hundred every late summer underneath my 9 mature oak trees.
Oh, thank you so much. Never even heard of these before, so that's now definitely something new i've learned.
Name: Big Bill Livonia Michigan (Zone 6a) If you need to relax, grow plants!!
I have always seen galls on other plants. Perhaps they are more common then we think. One plant that is effected a lot is Goldenrod. Those I used to show children on a tour with me those galls. I would carefully cut it with a pocket knife to show them the insect living inside.
Orchid lecturer, teacher and judge. Retired Wildlife Biologist. Supervisor of a nature preserve up until I retired.
Yeah, i did find quite a few of them when i was out in the woods. Kinda feel bad now that i probably killed the larva that was in it by cutting it open.
Still, was a really neat thing to learn, so again, thank you.
I really don't know much about plants when it comes to these specific things, despite being an outdoorsy type. I know edible greens and some of the common edible mushrooms, but that's about it, really. Enough to survive without supplies, but certainly not enough to know about that sort of thing.
