OBSERVATIONS. 



83 



The Eoses and their Galls. 



Three or lour roses occur in this 

 immediate neighbourhood. They 

 are Rosa canina, R. mvensis, and R. 

 villosa. Another si^ecies is common 

 to the sandy sea-shore, as also to 

 mountains, this is Rosa spinosissima. 

 The galls of which I have to speak 

 chiefly a&ect R.canina and R. spinosis- 

 sima. Every one must have noticed 

 those tufted moss-like productions 

 on our hedge rose, known by the 

 name of bedeguars. These beautiful 

 jDroductions may be found late in 

 the summer and in autumn, when 

 the leaves begin to change ; they too 

 assume intensity of colour, being 

 prettily tinted with red and green, 

 and becoming at this season of the 

 year a great ornament to our hedge- 

 rows. They serve as a nidus through 

 the winter and spring for a whole 

 colony of gall-flies, of the order 

 Hymenoptera, scientifically known 

 by the name of Cynips Rosce. 



The economy is this : — The parent 

 fly, which is blackish brown with the 

 abdomen ferruginous and strongly 

 arched, pierces the young shoots of 

 the rose, laying her eggs within the 

 shoot. The juices of the part 

 pierced become languid, and these 

 singular growths supervene ; and as 

 it is the natural tendency of the 

 rose to clothe itself with prickles, so 

 we find the galls thickly covered over 

 with fibrous bristles. Each bede<T:uar 



contains many separate cells, and 

 each cell gives exit to a single 

 tenant, and it is really surprising 

 with what rapidity the gall-fly eats 

 its way through the hard little hol- 

 low globe that keeps it a close 

 prisoner till it assumes the imago 

 state of existence. On removing the 

 bristles from the bedeguar, the small 

 circular openings through which the 

 gall-flies have made their exit are 

 readily seen. 



Visitors to the sea-side, in the 

 summer, can hardly fail to have 

 noticed the little red balls that beset 

 the prickly Burnet rose. Hardly 

 any part of the plant seems free ; the 

 calyx itself is made to assume 

 unsightly proportions, while the 

 stem and leaf-stalks offer a series 

 of ruddy wens of varied size and 

 form. These are the work of a tiny 

 gall-fly (Cynips Roses sjnnosissimcej. 

 Each wen is tenanted by a single 

 Cynips, which finds therein its 

 nutriment and shelter till it puts on 

 wings and leaves its singular home. 



The galls are smooth, thus difler- 

 ing from those of the hedge-rose. 

 This circumstance, I may remark, 

 is the more strange, when we con- 

 sider how much more spiny is the 

 stem of the Burnet rose, as compared 

 with our friend of the green lanes 

 and hedges. The insect differs from 

 the Cynips Rosm both in size and 

 colouring. — P. Inchbald, Storthes 

 Hall, June 24th, 1864. 



