Rose bedeguar galls
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Rose bedeguar galls by Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Rose bedeguar galls
Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 12 Aug 2008
An example of the rose gall, more often known as a robin's pincushion. The gall is created by the plant in response to an attack by the larvae of a gall wasp (Diplolepsis rosae) which then live in and feed on the resulting formation until emergence. In fact a recent study revealed that up to 17 different species had been found to inhabit bedeguars, some being inquilines - that is, larvae that use the gall without having formed it themselves - as well as parasites that feed on the larvae in situ. For information on the rose gall research project see http://www.british-galls.org.uk/bedeguar.htm The bedeguar is not of itself harmful to the plant.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.055361
Longitude
-4.450993