Favoritos de calconey

On Carya tomentosa

First photo: top of leaf on left, bottom of leaf on right.
Second photo: in the gall on the right side, I’ve scraped away the top and you can see a tiny glistening dot that is the larva. There is viscous purple stuff that may be a deterrent of some kind.

This seems to be an undescribed species of Neolasioptera, causing stem swelling on this large figwort (Scrophularia species). Currently there are no images on the Gallformers website for it, so if this looks correct then feel free to use one or all of them.

The Marianist Nature Preserve is maintained by the Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC) at Mount St. John. This was my first visit, and I hiked a short loop of the trail that took me from an open wildflower meadow at the Sacred Embrace Earthwork, through oak/hickory/dogwood woods to the Woodland Fen, and then along a little side loop trail through the Moist Woods and overlooking the Brother Don Geiger Tall Grass Prairie.

These wonderfully fluffy galls were growing on a grapevine that was ambling through the wildflowers in the little meadow at the Sacred Embrace Earthwork. I've never seen any like these before, and this was the only batch of them I saw there.

A few florets in the bloom of a Sambucus cerulea had slightly swollen ovaries beneath them. I opened one from one shrub and one from a few yards away.

I was expecting Elderberry Gall Midge (Schizomyia umbellicola), which I have twice found in the county, one of them < 10 miles away. The midge produces much more swollen ovaries--particularly the June 27 one, which had swollen, very round galls. The May 11 one was shaped more like a vase.

Is this unknown larva a gall inducer? IDK. Maybe.

On Tilia americana (219894458), eating Eriophyes tiliae galls (219894464).
This was wild. I'm used to seeing leaves eaten around the galls, avoiding them. But this cat was munching on a gall when I saw it. As I tried to get pix, it retreated under some webbing. I waited and came back to find that it had started on a fresh gall. Other galls showed damage as well.
I searched the plant and found another such caterpillar. It too was nestled under webbing and between galls, although I couldn't see feeding damage to the galls or the leaf there.
Net, I'm uncertain whether the caterpillar is preying on the gall-making organisms or simply eating the galls.

On Common Hackberry (214525706).
No clue on this one. They were popping out of the fruit!

There were similar galls on leaves and stems. But after checking gallformers.org I didn't see a good match for galls on fruit.
Stuck it in Celticecis for lack of any other ideas.

this appears to be an integral stem gall on the stem of a western bunchberry (Cornus unalaschkensis). I didn't notice it in the field at all, only on subsequent review.
gallformers has no data on western bunchberry. the closest thing I found might be Resseliella clavula, an integral stem gall on Cornus florida that seems range-limited to east of the Rockies, so it's probably not that? but if not, what is it? I wish I had noticed this in the field lol

https://gallformers.org/gall/1007