NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM IOI 



A less serious infestation, especially if this occurs after the plants 

 have secured a good start, may result in a few comparatively insigni- 

 ficant swellings or galls on the stems or leaves and more or less 

 deformation of the flowers. One of the easiest methods of detect- 

 ing the young inconspicuous galls is to allow the leaf to slip through 

 loosely closed fingers, a process which will readily disclose the 

 presence of slight swellings. The small developing galls appear as 

 slight nodular elevations with darker centers protected to some 

 extent by an unusually abundant mass of short, white hairs, while 

 the fully developed galls have comparatively few of these short 

 hairs and the discolored apical portion makes them relatively 

 conspicuous. 



It is by all means advisable to avoid the introduction of infested 

 plants, hence the directions for the recognition of a slight infesta- 

 tion. It is much easier to keep the pest from establishing itself 

 than to control an infestation. 



Badly affected plants should be removed and destroyed, particu- 

 larly if the stems are seriously deformed, since the chances are 

 decidedly against the production of satisfactory blossoms. A few 

 galls on the leaves or scattering ones on the stems would probably 

 not affect the vitality of the plants to any great extent. Systematic 

 fumigation with burning tobacco paper or spraying with black leaf 

 40, 1 to 500, and fish oil soap at 3 or 4-day intervals, preferably 

 toward midnight, since 95 per cent of the flies emerge after mid- 

 night, has given very satisfactory results provided the treatment is 

 continued until the insect is practically eliminated. 



Additional details concerning this insect are given in the 31st 

 Report (for 1916) of this office, State Museum Bulletin 186, p. 



51-55, 1917. 



Cypress twig gall (Thecodiplosis ananassi Riley) . 

 This rather common gall midge usually produces a somewhat fusi- 

 form enlargement of the twig, frequently with a length of 1.25 cm. 

 Specimens received from Prof. W. E. Hinds, Auburn, Ala., October 

 25, 192 1 show an aborted type not unusual among gall midges. In 

 this particular instance, the gall appeared as a budlike enlargement 

 on one side of a small twig about 2 mm in diameter. A section of 

 the gall, the latter with its major diameter less than that of the twig, 

 revealed the orange-red larvae associated with this species and 

 inhabiting a small central cavity surrounded by light cellular tissue 

 as in the case of the larger and more typical deformation. This 

 condition is presumably the result of a very sparse infestation, 



