Bugs Inside Of Rolled Manzanita Leaf "red blister"

San Jose, CA

I was cleaning off a 5g Sunset Manzanita late tonight that I was going to plant tomorrow, and noticed some of the leaves had one side "rolled up" lengthwise that formed a pocket that looked like a red blister. The leaf was green but the portion that was rolled up was bright red, it almost looked like the leaf half had been thrown into a deep fryer where it puffed up, and was painted red. I decided to unroll a leaf and found these small black insects that looked like aphids inside. I unrolled a couple more and another one had what looked like a small moth larvae inside. It was late and I wasn't able to take any pictures, but I pulled all of the leaves that looked like this off (at least a couple of dozen) and basically crushed them to kill whatever was living inside. Does anyone know what kind of bug this might be? I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow.

San Jose, CA

Here's a picture of the leaves...I couldn't get the camera to focus on the inside of a leaf but the inside had what looked like insect debris...not sure if it was the original bug or something that took cover in it after the original bug had left.

Thumbnail by Bunson
San Jose, CA

Found it - manzanita leaf gall aphid!

This message was edited Jul 10, 2011 7:33 AM

(Zone 7a)

I was hoping you'd find the answer. I couldn't even guess.

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