Q: I have this beautiful tree that produces red fruit every spring. The tree is very large and sometimes the fruit is in clusters. What can you tell me about this tree?

A: This tree puzzled me for a while because it had catkins like an oak or willow. Only the young leaves were present and they looked similar to willow leaves, but the fruit was very beautiful and unusual. After much searching and discussion with other people in the county, I decided to open up the seed of the fruit and I found a small, white insect larvae. This made me realize I had a gall on my hands.

This gall is called the roly poly oak gall. It’s caused by gall wasps in the genus Andricus and is called roly-poly because the wasp grub develops in that loose-egg-like structure inside the hollow gall. If the gall is shaken, the grub in its structure rolls around – hence the name “roly poly”. The biology of roly-poly galls is still not well known. Oaks can have numerous types of galls. Out of the over 800 species of gall making wasps in North America, 731 of them attack oaks. Oak deformities are of various sizes, shapes, and colors on leaves, twigs, flowers, acorns and buds. Galls are so commonly found on oaks that many people think the galls are typical parts of the plant. Some early botanical drawings actually show galls as part of the normal plant. The good news about galls is the majority does little or no damage to trees. The trees are just well accessorized. Generally there is enough unaffected foliage for the trees to remain vigorous and therefore this is one less thing you need to worry about.

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