APPLE ROOT BORER 



By Fred E. Brooks, 



Entomological Assistant, Deciduous-Fruit Insect Investigations, 



Bureau of Entomology 



INTRODUCTION 



While engaged in observations on the larval habits of the roundheaded 

 apple-tree borer {Saperda Candida Fab.) in West Virginia during the year 

 191 1, the writer noticed in apple {Mains spp.) numerous burrows of 

 some smaller insect associated with those of the former. Infested wood 

 was collected and adults were reared, which were determined by Mr. E. A. 

 Schwarz, of the Bureau of Entomology, as Agrilus viilaticollis Rand., a 

 species of beetle which hitherto had not been recognized as an enemy of 

 cultivated fruit trees. Further observations showed that the species 

 is quite generally distributed throughout the Appalachian fruit region 

 and that in places it is doing considerable damage to young apple trees. 



The literature pertaining to this insect is meager. The species was 

 first described from Massachusetts by J. W. Randall in 1837 and received 

 the name which it now bears. In 1841 it was redescribed by Gory, in his 

 monograph of the buprestids, as Agrilus jrenahis. Le Conte, in 1857, 

 lists the species as "A. jrenatus Gory," with the note, "unknown to me." 

 Again, in 1859 the same writer, in his Revision of the Buprestidae of the 

 United States, uses both names as synonymous, giving neither the 

 preference. In 1871 Edward Saunders in his Catalogus Buprestidarum, 

 gives Randall's name the preference over Gory's. Since that time the 

 species has been mentioned occasionally in lists of Buprestidae as Agrilus 

 ■viUaiicollis Rand. 



E. P. Austin, in 1875, seems to have been the first to associate the 

 insect with a host plant, at which time he notes: "Found occasionally 

 in various parts of the State [Massachusetts] and seems to live on shad- 

 berry (Amelancbier canadensis)." In 1889 Frederick Blanchard, in his 

 list of the Buprestidae of New England, records that in Massachusetts 

 the beetle is found occasionally in June, feeding on the leaves of thorn, 

 service, or shadbush {Amelanchier canadensis) and chokeberry. A 

 specimen of the beetle in the United States National Museum was col- 

 lected by W. F. Fiske in June at Tryon, N. C, on leaves of Oxydendrum. 

 The species is also recorded from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, 

 and it probably occurs throughout the greater part of the eastern United 

 States. 



At the suggestion of Prof. A. h- Quaintance, in charge of deciduous- 

 fruit insect investigations for the Bureau of Entomology, a further 

 study of the insect and its habits was made, the results of which are re- 

 corded below. 



NATURE AND EXTENT OF INJURY 



The injury to the trees is done by the slender, white larva of the insect, 

 which bores through the sapwood and heartwood of the roots and lower 

 trunk. The burrows through the roots frequently extend outward for 



Joun al of Agricultural Research. Vol. Ill, No. a 



Dept. of Asriculturc. Washington, U. C. Nov. i6. 1914 



(179) K-i. 



