Letters and Reports by USDA Scientists Concerning 



the Need for the Destruction of the 

 First Shipment of Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

 BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY 



Washington, January 19, 1910 



Dear Dr. Howard: 



I beg leave to submit the following report on the shipment of 2,000 

 flowering cherry trees from Japan, the inspection of which has been in 

 progress for the past week. This inspection has been somewhat hastily 

 done on account of the necessity of handling the trees rapidly so that they 

 might be quickly heeled in to prevent any further drying of the roots, 

 which were already in very poor condition. 



(1) Practically 100 per cent of the trees were more or less seriously 

 infested with scale insects. Enormous numbers of the Chinese Diaspis (Di- 

 aspis pentagona ) were found on most of the trees; also a limited amount 

 of San Jose scale (Aspidiotus perniciosus). 



(2) Approximately 20% are visibly infested with the boring larvae, in 

 all stages, of a Sesiid moth of somewhat similar habits to our peach borer 

 (Sannioidea exitiosa). This undetermined species is apparently more dan- 

 gerous than the common peach borer, since it attacks the trees not only 

 near the surface of the ground, but frequently its work is evident at the 

 base of the upper branches or in the stump of a pruned limb, or wherever 

 there is an abrasion of the bark. The above percentage of visibly infested 

 trees may constitute only a small percentage of those infested with the 

 borer, since the infested trees can be discovered during a superficial exam- 

 ination only by the presence of frass and excrement of larvae in the more 

 advanced stages or from matured insects which have emerged; so that the 

 majority of the infested trees discovered may have been infested for a year 

 or more. Some of the trees were completely girdled and in a dying condi- 

 tion. 



These larvae in various stages are so deeply imbedded in the wood and 

 so thoroughly protected by the gummy exudation of the wounded bark 

 that no reasonable amount of fumigation would kill them. 



(3) Other undetermined larvae of moth were found on the trees, along 

 with cocoons of at least two species of bagworms. A living Pierid chrys- 

 alis, and a chrysalis of the Cochleiid, Cnidocampa flavescens Walk, (de- 

 termined by Dr. Dyar) were found. 



(4) An undetermined weevil similar in appearance to Pseudocneorhinus 

 obesus (auct. H. Barber) was found. 



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