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Project Noah Nature School
Salix barclayi
Delicate flowering vegetation, low to the ground. The Camellia gall, or terminal rosette gall, occurs on Salix species, which are prone to galls in general. "Rabdophaga rosaria [the gall midge]... lays her eggs in the end bud of Barclay's willow along with enzymes that cause the newly forming leaves to grow into this rose-like pattern with a fleshy interior that the maggot can eat." If I were to dissect the gall, an orange larva would be found inside! The adult midge erupts in the spring time.
Grows in the high alpine tundra of Denali National Park and Preserve. This is a subarctic region at elevation > 3300'.
Some information directly quoted in the description was taken from: http://lscottranger.blogspot.com/search?... Fascinating details about the "Story of the Willow Rose": http://www.akentsoc.org/doc/Bowser_ML_et... Lastly, here's information on the gall midge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabdophaga...
@Machi, thanks again! I was able to figure out the species and learned quite a bit.
Thanks for the ID, Machi! So, you mean to say that there’s likely a critter inside this plant? :0 What a surprise.
We have many species of willow in Alaska so I'm not sure which species it is. What you see in the photo is called a willow rose https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region...
Spotted on Jul 16, 2016
Submitted on Feb 22, 2019
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