"Imagine yourself living in a globelike room with greenish walls bulging outward and upward and then arching in to meet above your head,” the naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote. Imagine such a room constructed of succulent, edible material, forming a house that at once provides food and shelter, plenty and protection. That is what you would find if you traded places with those gall insects in the globular swellings on the stem of my hillside goldenrods. We have all seen these curious swellings on goldenrod stems, though usually we do not imagine them as Teale did.

Galls are unique growths on plants, started in reaction to egg laying or feeding of gall-making insects and mites. The physical irritation or chemical secretions of these insect activities results in a distinctive enlargement or swelling of the plant, ranging from simple to highly complex forms and shapes. Each kind of gall maker can usually cause only one kind of gall and prefers to use specific plants. Midges and other flies, gall wasps and mites make up the largest number of gall makers. Galls are also caused by aphids, sawflies and less often by a few kinds of moths, beetles and true bugs.

Read the rest of the Larry's column in our January issue...