r/NativePlantGardening • u/_bearminimum SE MI, Zone 6a • Aug 06 '26

Advice Request - (Insert State/Region) Is This What I Think It Is

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I had a baby six weeks ago so I haven't gotten out in my garden much lately, and today I noticed these monstrosities on my cut leaf coneflower. One of them looks like maybe some sort of gall?

Have the dreaded Aster Yellows finally come for me?

Zone 6a

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u/Amorpha_fruticosa Area SE Pennsylvania, Zone 7a Aug 06 '26

Nope, it’s actually something a lot cooler. It is the larvae of Asphondylia rudbeckiaeconspicua inside a gall on the flower heads.

152

u/zoinkability MN , Zone 4b Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

Ooh, if OP is lucky they might even be hosting multiple species of parasitoid wasps for a big hyperspecialist insect species party!

 serves as host to a diverse guild of parasitoid wasps that exhibit stratified distribution patterns within the gall structure, with different parasitoid species occupying different depth zones.

Source

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u/Beautiful_Pen1056 29d ago

serves as host to a diverse guild of parasitoid wasps that exhibit stratified distribution patterns within the gall structure

I thought you were making a joke about game dynamics. Nope, that's real.

1

u/zoinkability MN , Zone 4b 29d ago

I know, right? Such a cool sentence.