I'd love to see the photos and learn more regarding the epilobium galls! That you found cecids (rather than Mompha) is interesting and reassuring...in relation to the earlier comments of Joyce & Chris. (And Pnigalio look like fascinating eulophids!)

Are you sure you successfully posted the photos on BugGuide? (I didn't see them among your current contributor images here.)

Once you've uploaded a photo on BugGuide, you can include a thumbnail for it in a comment by using the [thumb:#] markup code (it's easy once you get the hang of it...see the last item on the BugGuide help page here).

I didn't find an email address on your contributor page...though if we pursue the discussion here, others who are interested can also access the info (e.g. Joyce & Chris).

PS: The Del Puerto Canyon population appearing in this post may be extirpated in the near future by a proposed dam that will flood its habitat.

Hi Aaron,
I made my email visible, but sadly I'm not figuring out how to upload images to account. Obviously, I've done it but only through the request ID tab. I can email you photos. Joyce and Ron Russo and I have been corresponding on this and Joyce has her full set of photos of the galls on her website. Let me know if you would like photos emailed. And any tips on what I'm missing with uploading photos on this site would be great.

David

...so no need to email them to me ;-). I've included a clickable thumbnail link to them below (using the "[thumb:#]" markup code mentioned earlier ;-):

  cecid gall inducer:     flower bud gall:

Great to have the mystery resolved (after 7 years of curious uncertainty ;-). Many thanks to you, Joyce, and Ray Gagné for your efforts!
_______________________________________________________________

PS: Regarding tips on adding photos...If one wants to add a photo to BugGuide and they know the ID (either to species, or perhaps only to a higher rank) they can proceed as follows:

First, navigate to the taxon's BugGuide page (e.g. by searching on its name)...for instance, here's the Contarinia zauschneriae "info page". Next, click the "Image" tab (4th tab in the second row of tabs at upper left of the page). After doing that, if one is signed into their BugGuide account, they'll see an "add image" link below the thumbnails at the lower left of the central pane of the page. Then one just clicks that "add images" link and follows the prompts.

PPS: Learning various tricks to using the web site comes over time...and BugGuide contributors and editors are happy to help when folks are stuck. But the most important thing is you got the images and info up for an interesting and unusual find...leading to the resolution of a long-standing mystery! ;-)

I just uploaded a series of images (the ones you've both already seen) showing the internal gall structure -- so they are here on BugGuide, too. As Aaron said, it's great to have this mystery solved!

The linked moth is definitely Mompha, probably M. murtfeldtella, though all of the references I've checked only mention Oenothera as a host and not Epilobium - though Powell and Opler do mention that M. murtfeldtella may represent a complex of species and if that's the case it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to reason that several members may have taken to specializing on other Onagraceae such as your Epilobium here. That, of course, is just wild speculation! Re: the larval biology, Powell and Opler simply state that they are tip borers; Dickerson & Weiss write that the larvae "make their way to the center of the bud and feed on petals and stamens" (Journal of the New York Entomological Society VoI. xxviii, 1920).

All of this would have me believe that the presence of the Mompha on the galls is purely coincidental as you have already reasoned.

I searched for "Epilobium" with no success in "The Gall Midges of California" by Pritchard(1) (1953) ...but then realized I may have better luck if I searched under the old name for California Fuchsia, namely: Zauschneria californica.

Sure enough, there was a single gall midge species listed under that host name, on pg. 143 of Pritchard. The midge's name was given as Thecodiplosis zauschneriae Felt, and Pritchard stated that the species was known only from the types collected in the Puente Hills near Whittier, CA...and reared in December, 1910 from rosette galls on Zauschneria californica.

Interesting that you saw that single midge on the gall on September 1st, whereas those described by Felt apparently emerged in December.

Felt's original 1912 description can be found at the bottom of the page at this BHL link. Felt's refers to the galls as "apical rosettes or loose cones of leaves on dwarfed branches" which seems fairly consistent with what we found. If and when larvae or adults are found, we can compare them with Felt's descriptions. There is also a listing of this species in Felt's 1917 "American Insect Galls(2)" with a (not so clear) image of a gall in Fig. 183 here. Note that the ITIS web site lists Contarinia zauschneriae as the current name.

It would be interesting to learn what info Gagne(3) may have on this species. I searched unsuccessfully for online access to Gagne's book, but only found this rather amusing option...one can purchase a used copy in "good condition, may be Ex-lib book" available through Amazon for the bargain-basement price of $15,188.46...with only $3.99 added for shipping. Hurry and order now, while supplies last!! (Now that's some gall :-)

I just looked at Gagne's book again, and there is a gall midge listed for Epilobium canum! I don't know why I didn't see it before -- maybe too much Del Puerto Canyon sun, or the shingles, or too many things that I'm doing at once. Anyway, the species is listed as Contarinia zauschneriae.

This is what it says: "Rolled leaves of young bud.... Larvae reportedly live in the center of the young folded or curled leaves. Adults were reared in December. Hosts: E. canum. Distr.: California."

It sounds as if Gagne hasn't actually seen this gall.

I don't feel so bad having missed it in Felt (where I looked also) since it's under an old host name, but in Gagne it has the current host name.

I haven't gotten any midges yet from the galls we collected last weekend, but 3 tiny parasitoid wasps have emerged.

and Joyce collected a few more galls...but left the lion's share undisturbed, as the galled clump of shrubs was quite localized...none of the other patches of Epilobium canum we saw in the canyon appeared galled and we didn't want to risk extirpating the population.

Joyce will try to rear them (she's better skilled at that than I :-). If we weren't too late, and were lucky enough to actually get some larvae or pupae in the collected material, Joyce suspects they'll be emerging quite soon, as she found many empty chambers with exit holes in much of the material we collected last week...as well as what looked like a single cecidomyid fly which may have been the gall-maker rather than a moth. The gall chambers appear to be genetically hijacked structures derived from nascent buds, enclosed in those conspicuous hemispherical bundles of abnormal reddish-tinged, sepal-like, bracts.

Note that although those bracts might appear to be homologous to "sepals", I don't think they are. Because Epilobium don't really have typical sepals like that...they have a "hypanthium", which is a structure formed from the fusion of sepals, petals, and filaments at the top of the inferior ovary...and the abundant gall-induced bracts here are attached below where the ovary would normally have developed.

Anyway, it was nice to learn that you encountered a new species of Mompha that will soon be described by Terry Harrison. Perhaps our gall here may turn out to be a new species too...of cecidomyid, or Mompha, or who knows what! Hopefully we weren't too late this year, and Joyce will find out more from rearing the material collected. Else we may have to return to the locale next year and try again, but earlier in the season.