115
Aulacidea hieracii (Bouche, 1834)
lkm. sq. records: 4 Scarce
Fig.3
Host Plant: Hieracium spp., hawkweed
Part galled: flowering stem
The large (several centimetres long), pleurilocular, spherical galls are found on the stems of
Hieracium spp. They are initially green, turning red and finally browmsh. There are also
references to galls on Linaria and Solidago (Eady & Quinlan. 1963). In Essex Hieracium is the
only host recorded, but because of the taxonomically dificult nature of the group, it is difficult to
say if any one section of the Hieracia is more readily affected than any other.
Fig. 3
© J.P. Bowdrey
This species seems to be very scarce in Essex.
There is an association with heathland. Fitch
recorded the species from Danbury (w here it
still occurs in low numbers). Thundersley and
also Steeple Bumpstead. Galls were recorded
from Benfleet (Niblett, 1950). Tiptree Heath is
a stronghold in the county nowadays, but even
here numbers of galls are low annually. Other
than these there are odd records from a railway
embankment and a roadside.
The galls are vulnerable to premature culling,
but the greatest threat, at least on the Tiptree
site is shading out of the host plants by scrub
invasion. On one particular track where galls
were fairly common in 1987 only three could
be found on seventy-five plants examined at
the now shaded site in 1993.
The adult insect is characterised by the head,
when viewed anteriorly, being slightly
transversely ovate and when viewed dorsally
with the temples expanded behind the eyes.
The radial cell is three times as long as broad
and is indistinctly closed.. The scutellar foveae
on their anterior margins form a straight line
The third antennal segment is at most equal in
length to the fourth.
Aulacidea pilosellae (Kicffcr, 1887)
lkm.sq. records: 4 Scarce
Map 3
Host: Pilosella officinarum F.Schultz & Schultz-Bip [= Hieracium pilosella]. Mouse-eared
hawkweed
Part galled: leaf midrib, petiole
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 16 (1999)