Turpentine borer beetles emerge in February or March and feed for a short time 
on the needles in the tops of their hosts. Eggs are deposited in exposed wood 
containing season checks, especially at the edges of turpentine faces and on fire- 
scarred surfaces. The larvae tunnel in the sapwood and heartwood, construct long, 
narrowly oval, tortuous mines, and fill them with solidly packed, fine, granular, 
pitchy frass. At maturity, they form cells in which to pupate near the surface. There 
the adult spends the winter. About 3 years are spent in the larval stage. 
The turpentine borer used to be the most destructive insect in the turpentine 
orchards of the South (72, 74). Borer-riddled trees were weakened so severely they 
became subject to windbreakage. The lumber value of such trees was virtually 
destroyed, and gum production was seriously reduced. Attacks can be prevented or 
reduced by preventing the exposure of dead, dry wood to fire, logging, or other 
forest operations. Acid treatment to increase gum flow in naval stores operations 
has virtually eliminated dry faces, thereby greatly reducing the damage caused by 
the species. 
A number of other species of Buprestis are also encountered in eastern forests. A 
few of the more common ones and their hosts are as follows: B. striata (F.)—adult 
brown with greenish reflections; it breeds in dead branches of pine, hemlock, and 
baldcypress. B. lineata (F.)—adult medium-size and dark, usually with brick-red to 
yellow longitudinal markings on the elytra; it attacks longleaf, loblolly, pitch, and 
Virginia pines. B. rufipes (Olivier)—adult slender and dark green, with a long, 
yellow basal patch and two crossbars of yellow on the elytra; infestations occur 
around scars on elm, beech, hickory, oak, maple, yellow-poplar, and tupelo. B. 
salisburyensis (Herbst)—adult short, oval, and green with a tooth on the inner 
margin of each elytron; it breeds in pitch pine. B. maculipennis Gory—adult rather 
small and blackish, with a brassy tinge and scattered yellow spots or patches on the 
elytra; it attacks pine and hemlock. 
The genus Chrysobothris contains some of the most common and injurious 
members of the family. The larvae are all borers in the wood of both deciduous and 
coniferous trees. All parts of the tree are attacked, from the roots to the twigs in the 
crown, but the majority of attacks occur on the main trunk. The adults are small to 
medium size and are usually not conspicuously colored. The pronotum is usually 
wider than long and the scutellum is small and triangular. The elytra are rounded or 
angulate at the base and they strongly converge posteriorly. The legs are robust, 
with the femora swollen at the middle. There usually is a large tooth on each front 
leg. Several species are very injurious, especially to young trees weakened by 
drought, defoliation, or other adverse factors. The genus has been revised (424). 
The flatheaded appletree borer, C. femorata (Olivier), one of the commonest 
and best known of the flatheaded borers in North America, occurs throughout most 
of Canada and the United States. It attacks a wide variety of deciduous trees such as 
sycamore, silver maple, boxelder, black walnut, willow, white and black oaks, 
yellow-poplar, elm, beech, hickory, hackberry, apple, and pear. The adult is oval, 
flattened, dark green-bronze above, bright brassy beneath, and about 7 to 16 mm 
long. The elytra are marked with two wavy, depressed, light bands. Full-grown 
larvae are about 25 mm long. 
Adults appear throughout the summer and feed on the foliage of their hosts, 
occasionally causing serious defoliation. Eggs are deposited under bark scales or in 
bark crevices on the main trunk or larger branches. The larvae bore into the bark 
and feed in the phloem and outer sapwood. Their tunnels are sometimes 8 cm or 
more long, especially in young trees. Tunnels in older trees are confined mostly to 
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