While walking through a patch of brambles in Thetford, Vermont, we noticed many of the plants had bunched up leaves that were turning pink or brown at the center. What are these bunches, and what do they reveal about nearby trees?
Answer
These are the work of blackberry psyllids, also known as bramble flea lice. The larvae of these insects shelter within their host plant’s curled leaves all summer, feeding on sap. By mid-autumn, they have transformed into tiny winged adults, which fly to conifers, where they’ll spend the winter. But they can only fly so far; you won’t find blackberry psyllid feeding sign outside of about a 1-mile range of conifers.
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