October, 1S78] 



97 



NOTES ON LEAF GALLS ON PARINAIiIU3I CURATELLIFOLIUM. 

 BT E. A. ORMEEOD, P. M.S. 



The accompanying figures represent two kinds of leaf-galls on 

 Parinarium curatellifolium of Central and West Africa, which, though 

 unaccompanied by specimens of the gall-makers, may be of some in- 

 terest from their complicated structure. 



The trees of this genus (perhaps best known in the species called 

 the gray plum of Sierra Leone) belong to a sub-division of the 

 BosacecB, occurring for the most part in the tropical regions of Ame- 

 12 3 '^ 5 6 



■J^i 



rica and Africa ; and the African specimens which I have had an 

 opportunity of examining in the Herbarium of the Royal Gardens at 

 Kew shew a considerable variety in the nature of the galls, which are 

 formed for the most part on the leaves, but in some cases on the stem, 

 or the pedicels of the inflorescence. Of the leaf-forms, one bears 

 much resemblauce to the Pliyfoptus nail-gall of the lime tree (Tilia 

 intermedia and T. (jrandifolia) , though differing in some points of 

 structure. 



Another causes a swelling of the leaf-surface about an eighth of 



an inch or more in horizontal 



nil 



diameter, glabrous on the upper 

 side of the leaf, and mealy below, 

 corresponding with the remarka- 

 ble mealiness or roughness of 

 the under surface of the leaves. 

 Internally, these galls are spongy and sometimes two- or more-cham- 

 bered, and, in this case, a few specimens of Ohalcididce were still present, 

 but too brittle, from lapse of time, to bear removal for identification. 

 A third species is almost similar in size and general appearance to our 

 own Neuroterus lenticular is gall, the common oak-spangle. This spe- 

 cies shows, when magnified, a central disc surrounded by a well-defined 

 ring, the whole being covered with orange-yellow pubescence, and the 

 insect-chamber remarkable, in the specimens I examined, for extending 

 as a horizontal slit of an equal width throughout, across the whole 

 breadth of the central disc. 



A fourth species appears as a mass of upright orange-yellow hail's. 



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