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Indiana University Studies 



stems and roots, under ground, or under debris close to the ground; 

 sessil or nearly so, laterally or terminally, on roses. 



RANGE. — Canada and Maine to North Carolina and Washington, 

 Probably everywhere in North America where roses occur. 



The insects emerge rather late in the spring, in April or 

 May or later, depending on the development of the season. 

 Immature galls may be found in July or August. The species 

 is bisexual, with the sexes about equal in numbers, and prob- 

 ably takes only a single year to mature, without an alterna- 

 tion of generations. The number of parasites bred is not 

 great, altho they do occur. W. M. Davis (1908) records 

 finding galls broken into by mice. 



Two varieties, radicum and utahensis, of this species have 

 been previously described. They have been considered dis- 

 tinct species, the adults on the basis of trivial characters which 

 cannot be counted more than varietal, and the galls on the 

 basis of the original description of utahensis, which states 

 that the gall is deeply incised like a bud, and that it does not 

 occur entirely below the ground. Large collections however 

 indicate that there are absolutely no constant differences in 

 the galls of the two, unless the eastern galls average smaller. 

 It has been the custom to assign all material from eastern 

 localities to radicum, from w^estern localities to utahensis. As 

 a matter of fact, true utahensis and true radicum resemble 

 each other as closely as radicum, from the Atlantic Coastal 

 Plain up to Cape Cod, resembles johnsoni from the northern 

 Massachusetts coast. I hope anyone who may object to rec- 

 ognition of my varieties, my ''creations" in Cynipidse, will 

 bear in mind this radicum-utahensis case ! 



My material of this species is limited except from Utah. 

 There are undoubtedly many varieties to be described. In 

 addition to material which I can assign to definite varieties 

 the species has been recorded from Ottawa (Provancher) , On- 

 tario (Jarvis), Maine, Ohio (Beuteiimuller) , Indiana (Cook), 

 Illinois (Weld), Colorado (Ashmead, Gillette, and Cockerell). 

 The following are the references for these localities : 



Rhodites radicum Provancher, 1889, Add. et Corr., p. 162. Ashmead, 

 1890, Colo. Biol. Assoc. Bull., I, p. 38. Gillette, 1892, Ent. News, 

 III, p. 247. Webster, 1892, Ohio Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull., 45, p. 156. 

 Cockerell, 1900, Ent. Student, I, p. 10. Cook, 1904, Proc. Ind. Acad. 

 Sci., p. 225; 1904, Ohio Nat., V, figs. 98a, 98b; 1905, 29th Pvpt. Ind. 

 Dpt. Geol. and Nat. Pves., p. 817, fig. 11. Jarvis, 1907, Pvpt. Ent. 

 Soc. Ont., XXXVII, p. 70; 1909, Pvpt. Ent. Soc. Ont., XXXIX, p. 90. 



