American Museum of Natural History and the U.S. National Museum. Labelled Kelseyville, California; galls September 28, 1924, September 20 and October 4, 1925, and September 26, 1926; Q. Douglasii; P. Schulthess collector.
Both varieties echinus and vicina occur on the blue oak, Q. Douglasii, and the galls of the two cannot be distinguished. The small size, dark color, and smoother foveae of vicina clearly differentiate most of the material I have. The bisexual forms of echinus and vicina are about as close as the agamic forms, but they do show differences enough to lend some weight to our recognition of two varieties here. The insects of the agamic vicina are not entirely distinct from those of either varieties schulthessae or mista, but these three varieties are separated by their distinctive galls and hosts.
While echinus occurs thruout the Great Valley, vicina is probably restricted to a narrow area bordering the Valley. Jepson defines this area (1925, Manual Flowering Plants Calif., p. 12) for the higher plants. The localities recorded for vicina are all adjacent to the Great Valley but at points spread over several hundred miles. Vicina cannot be considered a trivial variant of echinus, for we have enough material of echinus to understand its distribution and variation. At three of the localities for vicina some typical echinus insects were obtained, but the insects do interbreed in places.
At Colfax, in Placer County, where we might have expected vicina, a dozen insects collected by Mr. Leach (in 1922) proved to be typical echinus.
The life history of vicina probably matches that of echinus. Galls not more than two-thirds mature were collected at Lower Lake on August 28 (1927). Mature galls were collected at Inskip on September 9 (in 1925), and at Kelseyville on September 26 (in 1926) and 28 (in 1924). Some of the Bartlett Mountain material collected October 31 (in 1926) emerged (out-of-doors at Bloomington, Indiana) on January 8 and 21 (1927), while other galls of the same collection still contained larvae on February 1 (1927). Two of these larvae matured into adults which emerged at some (undetermined) date after the first of February. The Inskip material emerged about the middle of January (in 1925), and on January 20 (1925) some dead and some live adults were in the breeding bags, while some dead and some live adults were still in the galls.
