Some insects, mostly gall wasps, can chemically persuade trees and plants to grow some kind of protection for their offspring. This results in the strange and unusual growths you sometimes see on leaves, often oak leaves.
Here's an overview of the galls I have seen over the years:
The common oak gall (Cynips longiventris), eikenstuitergal in Dutch:
The oak gall (Cynips quercusfolii), eikengal in Dutch:
Unidentified:
The common spangle gall (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum), lensgal in Dutch:
The smooth spangle gall (Neuroterus albipes), napjesgal in Dutch:
The Canada thistle gall (Urophora cardui), distelgal in Dutch:
The silk button gall (Neuroterus numismalis), satijnen knoopjesgal in Dutch:
The oak artichoke gall (Andricus foecundatrix), ananasgal in Dutch:
There are quite a few more, but I haven't seen or photographed them yet.
Thanks for watching!
Very special forms of galls. The round shaped oak gall is the most common. But I've seen galls on leaves of lime trees as well, they look like spikes.
This is a photo (not mine):
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well thats what they are, haha. Thank you for posting
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Some fascinating galls there. I like the one on the thistle. I've never seen one like that before.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Good gally, that's a lot of leaf balls. In all seriousness though, that is one impressive collection of gall photos. So much variation. Thanks.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit