SB 
818 
C37 
ENT 
8 
No. 105. Issued October 5, 1908. 
aited States Department of Agriculture, 
BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY, 
L. O. HOWARD, Entomologist and Chief of Bureau. 
THE ROSE SLUGS. 
By EF. H. CHITTENDEN, 
In Charge of Truck Crop and Special Insect Investigations. 
Roses grown in gardens in the United States are attacked by three 
species of sawfiies which live, in their larval stages, on the foliage, 
skeletonizing the leaves or cutting out holes of variable size and 
greatly disfiguring the plants. The larve, popularly known as “ rose 
slugs,” “ slugworms,” and “ roseworms,” have been classified as the 
American rose slug, the bristly roseworm, and the coiled or curled 
roseworm, respectively. For the sake of uniformity they may all be 
called rose slugs. The first of these, as its common name indicates, 
is native to America; the other two are evidently accidental intro- 
ductions from Europe, as they are now common to both hemispheres. 
As with most other sawflies,¢ they are found more abundantly in the 
North, but are quite troublesome as far southward as Maryland and 
Kansas. They practically confine their depredations to the flower 
garden, and roses are the only plants that are seriously damaged by 
them. Injury is due entirely to the larve, and the three species, each 
representing a distinct genus, differ considerably in appearance in all 
stages, as also in their life history and manner of work. | 
THE AMERICAN ROSE SLUG. 
(Endelomyia rose Harr.)? 
The American rose slug was first identified as a pest about the year 
1831, when it did damage in gardens at Cambridge, Mass. At that 
time the species was somewhat restricted to that locality, but later, 
according to Harris, who observed and studied its habits,’ it grad- 
ually spread in that vicinity and by 1840 it had become so great a 
nuisance that a premium of $100 was offered for the most successful 
method of destroying it. 
“ Hymenopterous insects of the family Tenthredinide. 
6 Synonyms: MWonostegia rose and Selandria rose. 
¢ Report Ins. of Mass. Inj. to Veget., 1841, pp. 380-382; Flint ed., pp. 525-528. 
§4115—Cir. 105—O8 
