Gall midge in rhizome of wild ginger, Asarum canadense

MJ Hatfield and I have discussed how there seems to be just about nothing that eats wild ginger exclusively. For a while I've thought that the leaf stalks or the rhizomes might harbor some kind of life, but I never found anything in them until I randomly decided to cut into a rhizome today. I cut it open right by the tip of the rhizome where the two leaves attach. Inside I found three small cavities, two of which contained single gall midge larvae in cocoons. One of these cavities and its larva are shown in the current image. The entire rhizome piece with all three cavities and two larvae is shown in the final image of this series.

I harvested about a dozen additional rhizome tips and brought them home; two of these also had cavities with larvae.