The Physical Appearance of The Gall
The gall growth first appears as a rounded mass of green plant tissue on the leaf buds of the oak, later becoming hard and brown, being up to approximately 25 mm / 1 in in diameter. Although nearly spherical, the galls often have a number of little flattened nodules. The rounded growths are filled with a spongy mass and a single wasp larva is located in a hard seed-like cell in the centre. The word 'marble' derives from the gall's shape, which is a marble-like rounded structure. As stated, although normally distinctive the oak marble gall can, under some growth conditions, be mistaken for the oak apple gall, caused by a number of gall wasps, such as Biorhiza pallida. This may be due to the observer's unfamiliarity with the true oak apple gall which grows to be somewhat larger, has red markings, but does grow on the axillary or terminal buds. The galls sometimes coalesce. The non-parasitised specimens are at the largest end of the size range.
Fused and/or stunted specimens can be confused with A. kollari (Hartig).
Read more about this topic: Andricus Kollari
Famous quotes containing the words physical, appearance and/or gall:
“A separation situation is different for adults than it is for children. When we were very young children, a physical separation was interpreted as a violation of our inalienable rights....As we grew older, the withdrawal of love, whether that meant being misunderstood, mislabeled or slighted, became the separation situation we responded to.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“This mesa plain had an appearance of great antiquity, and of incompleteness; as if, with all the materials for world-making assembled, the Creator had desisted, gone away and left everything on the point of being brought together, on the eve of being arranged into mountain, plain, plateau. The country was still waiting to be made into a landscape.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)