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Planchonia epacridis, sp. nov. (?)
Figs. 30–37.
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Young insect about 1/40 inch in length, outline oval, body flat, tapering somewhat towards the anal tubercles (fig. 30). Antennæ (fig. 31) of five joints, but as these are crossed by numerous, closely placed, transverse lines, they seem to have more joints. The last joint is slightly clavate and has several long hairs. Feet (fig. 32) with well developed coxa, trochanter and femur; tibia and tarsus thin. I can make out only two digitules, which are fine hairs. From the anal tubercles spring two long setæ. The mentum is uni-articulate. General colour reddish brown. All over the dorsal surface and round the edge of the body are scattered spinneret orifices in the form of the figure 8, from which spring long, curling, white, glassy tubes.
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Second stage of female with general outline resembling the young; body somewhat flatter, marked with several transverse corrugations. Average length about 1/20 of an inch (fig. 33). Antennæ completely atrophied, indeed quite lost, their place being occupied only by circular rings with four hairs (fig. 34). Feet likewise absent. Mentum uni-articulate. Anal tubercles not very prominent, each bearing a long seta. The anal ring has, I think, six hairs. On the dorsal surface there are only a very few spinneret orifices, but round the edge of the body is a row of the figure-of-8 spinnerets, and from these springs a long silvery fringe, which is double. In fig. 33 I have tried to represent this fringe, but have only been able to show one row of it. It is necessary to imagine another row above the one shown, as if there were two fringes, one over the other. As the colour of the insect at this stage is reddish brown, as is also the surface of the leaf on which it feeds, the effect of this double glassy fringe of silver is of great beauty. The tubes of the fringe are not quite straight. Each pair springs from one of the figure-of-8 orifices, and the tips slightly diverge.
The adult female is covered over with a smooth, hard, semi-transparent test, convex above, flat beneath, and on the underside this test is also almost closed, leaving only an orifice for the rostral setæ, so that the insect is really enclosed: but at the extreme end of the abdomen the upper and lower portions of the test are slightly parted, leaving an opening. The test (fig. 35) is oval, but tapers towards the anal extremity, and in all the specimens which I have seen this anal end was turned towards the tip of the leaf. I should imagine that the reason for this is to facilitate the work of the male (though I have not as yet found any male insects). The leaves of Leucopogon
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Coccidæ
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fraseri, on which Planchonia epacridis is found, are often pretty closely imbricated, and there would be considerable difficulty for the male to impregnate the female if the abdomen of the latter were turned towards the stem of the plant. By turning the abdomen towards the tip of the leaf the male may with ease reach the female through the opening, just mentioned, between the portions of the test. Accordingly, in several scores of specimens which I have examined, the abdominal extremity of the test is directed to the tip of the leaf.
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The test, in all cases which I have seen, is of two colours: one half, at the cephalic end, is dark green, the other, or abdominal half, is bright yellow. All round the edge runs, as in the second stage, a long silver fringe in double row, one row over the other. The contrast of these colours with the dark reddish-brown of the leaf is extremely beautiful. Average length of the test 1/15 to 1/20 inch, exclusive of fringe.
The insect fills the whole test until gestation, after which it shrivels up, as in the Lecanio-diaspidœ, towards the cephalic end. It is, therefore, convex above, flat below. Antennæ, as in the second stage, reduced to rings with hairs (fig. 34). Feet entirely absent. The four spiracles are somewhat large: there are no spiracular spines as in Lecanium. Anal tubercles small, each bearing a seta: anal ring with six hairs. Along the edge of the body is a row of the figure-of-8 spinnerets, as shown in fig. 36: and all over the dorsal surface are a large number of simple circular spinneret orifices from which the test is secreted. Also a number of protruding tubes which stand out irregularly over the body like minute fingers, each cylindrical with a slight expansion at the tip. The mentum is uni-articulate, globular: the rostral setæ are short.
On Leucopogon fraseri, as yet only from Amberley, where it seems to be pretty abundant in one locality.
Having been obliged to send back to France my copy of M. Signoret's work on the Homoptera (the only work of reference available for the order at present), I am unable to say positively that Planchonia epacridis is a new species. It is possible too that I may have been mistaken in assigning its generic position, for I am not clear that the European Planchonia has not a felted, instead of a waxy or glassy test. Of course such a difference would be radical, because the secretion of wax and the secretion of felted matter would mean a different description of organs. However, the occurrence of the insect in a locality far removed from imported plants would seem to point to its being, at least, indigenous. I found it always on Leucopogon, growing amongst the tussacks and native plants, with only here and there a rare specimen of English grass or clover, from neither of
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which was it likely to have come. Whether it is a new species, or identical with one in Europe, it seems probable that it has not been introduced here first in the out-of-the-way locality where I found it.
Planchonia would seem to link the Lecanidæ to the Coccidæ even better than Kermes.