ladyjeanetteavenel: Oak galls, used for making Ink. I wonder…
Tuesday, April 14th, 2015Oak galls, used for making Ink. I wonder why a tree would make them?
Apologies if I’m explaining something you already know.
I’m not a gall expert, but from the little I know I suspect these galls were made in response to a wasp in the family Cynipidae laying its eggs on the stem. The oak then responded to the presence of the eggs (or maybe to the larvae that hatched from them) by producing the galls, which are masses of abnormal plant cells not unlike a benign tumor in an animal. The wasp larvae live and grow inside the galls, feeding on the plant tissue.
The actual mechanism whereby gall inducers interact with the host plant to create galls isn’t well understood. Gall researchers speculate that it involves some combination of chemical, physical, and/or viral triggers.
I kind of have a thing for galls, if that wasn’t obvious.
More reading:
- Wikipedia articles on gall wasp and gall
- Bugguide.net article on Cynipidae
- Field Guide to Plant Galls of California and Other Western States by Ronald A. Russo
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