Pip Fruits: Apples 



81 



Fig. 345. Apple Mussel Scale (Lepidosaphces ulmi) 



Mussel Scale (Lqpidosapkass ulmi). This scale insect or Coccid 

 (fig. 345) resembles a miniature mussel shell in form, about - to in. long 

 in the female and brown in colour, closely applied to the bark of the 

 stern and twigs and sometimes on the fruit and foliage. The male scale 



o o 



is much smaller and truncated at 

 one end; it is rare. 



These scales may encrust the 

 trees so thickly that they die, 

 especially young trees. 



Not only Apple, but Pear, Cur- 

 rant, Hawthorn, and other plants 

 are invaded by this insect, which is 

 widely distributed over the world. 



The female is a footless, fleshy 

 body which lives under the scale 

 with her long proboscis pushed 

 into the plant; she lays her eggs 



under the scale, and these we find all the winter. In June they hatch 

 into little active six-legged larvae which crawl over the trees and sooner 

 or later fix upon some definite abode; then they look like small white 

 specks, and by degrees the scaly covering is built up. The male has 

 two wings. 



TREATMENT. Winter spraying 

 with caustic soda or Woburn Winter 

 Wash, and spraying when the larvae 

 are free, towards the end of June, 

 with dilute paraffin emulsion. 



The Woolly Aphis (Sckizoneura 

 lanigera). This Aphis (fig. 346) 

 forms a large quantity of white floc- 

 culent wool from its back. It lives 

 mainly on the bark of the trunk, 

 branches, and finer shoots of the 

 Apple, but now and again on Pear, 

 and abundantly on the Wild Crab 

 Apple. It also lives on the roots of 

 Apple trees, where it works in a 

 similar way to the aerial form, suck- 

 ing out the sap, and by the punctures 

 of their proboscis they cause boil- 

 like swellings on young wood, which 

 burst and which later form large 

 rough patches in the crevices of which the insects and others shelter. 



The usual form is the plum-coloured wingless female, which is con- 

 stantly producing pale-yellowish living young. In the summer a winged 



female brood may appear. The winter is passed amongst moss and lichen 

 VOL. III. 36 



Fig. 346. Woolly Aphis or American Blight 

 (Schizoneura lanigera) 



