GALL.—Very close to that of variety dumosae, distinguishable chiefly by its more shining surface. Irregularly cushion-shaped, spheroidal, more or less flattened in places, the base more or less constricted, the apical end more or less widened and flattened, bearing a few, very short and blunt projections mostly on the rim of the gall; mature galls yellowish and rose or brownish red, the surface shining, varnished, without a puberulence; on Quercus dumosa. Figure 150.
RANGE.—California: Victorville (types; V. H. Ward in Kinsey coll.). Northeastern Los Angeles County (galls, W. Ebeling in Kinsey coll.).
Probably restricted to a limited area in or just north of the San Bernardino Mountains. Figure 26.
TYPES.—One female and many galls in the Kinsey collection. Paratype galls in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the U.S. National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the California Academy, and the Stanford University collections. Labelled Victorville, California; galls September 5, 1926; Q. dumosa; V. H. Ward collector.
The galls of this variety are almost identical in shape with those of dumosae. The two occur on the same host, but mista galls may be distinguished by their shining surfaces that appear as tho they were varnished. The insect of mista is very dark rufous in color and in every respect closer to variety vicina and thus readily distinguished from the light brownish insect of dumosae. It is very interesting to find the insect physiologically similar to its nearest neighbor (dumosae) on the south, and morphologically more like its neighbor (vicina) to the north. It is possible that the insect originated as a hybrid of dumosae and vicina, or just as possible that it achieved its characters by entirely independent evolution from some common stock of all these varieties.
The two collections we have of mista come from the broken mountain ridges that extend northward from the San Bernardino range into the Mojave Desert, an area in which a distinct variety might become isolated. But the San Bernardino range itself usually has a fauna distinct from that of the other mountains of California, and the range of mista may include the whole San Bernardino area.
The type galls were collected at Victorville by Mr. V. H. Ward, a High School teacher in Monrovia, California, on September 5, 1926, at which time they were full-sized altho the larvae they contained were still very small. Only one of these insects succeeded in maturing and emerging from the galls at some (undetermined) time in the following winter.
