THE OAK APPLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20426, 30 November 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE OAK APPLE.

Bobby was poking about in the garden, when suddenly under the oak tree he came across something queer! It was a hard, round ball clinging to a dry twig, and it looked us if it were made of wood. There were tiny holes all over it, and, not knowing what it was, Bobby took it in to his father.

" That's an oak apple;" said his father, " but it has nothing to do with apples. It is really a gall." "What's a gall?" asked Bobby. " Let's begin at the beginning," said his father. " When the oak was in leaf a little gall-making fly came along, bored a hole in an unopened hud, and laid some eggs at the bottom of' the hole. The bud did not like this and began to swell, and the little twig on which it grew was very irritated. So a round, soft ball formed over the eggs, and when the eggs hatched, and became little grubs they found themselves in a comfortable bouse. They could eat the inside of that house, for it was most nourishing, and when they wanted to come out all they had to do was to bore a hole in the gall." " Then they came out of these little holes in the oak apple?" said Bobby. " Yes," replied his father. " IJscb" grub became a chrysalis, and the chrysalis, became a fly, and made other gall balls. The gall is hard now because the wind broke the twig on which ifc grew, and when it- could get no nourishment from the oak it dried np. \on •will find galls; on all sorts of plants and leaves; they are the nurseries many different insects and flies."