The following are highlights and updates about samples and questions received in the Clinic during the past two weeks:
Insects
It's time for the minute pirate bugs to show up and cause the annoyance of biting exposed skin as you work in the fall sunshine.  Try to be benevolent to these ecologically-beneficial insects.  They worked all summer eating the eggs of other insects in the garden and field.  See the photo below and our web site for more information.
It seems to be the time of year for larger yellow ants to pick up and move to protected areas for the winter.  We have received many samples of the mixed workers and winged swarmers that overwinter.  Larger yellow ants occasionally spend the winter in basements, but they are harmless and do not set up permanent colonies indoors. Please see our website for information and a photo.

This year we have received numerous insect gall samples, especially on oak, and most of them are ones I have never seen before (see below for some pictures of my favorites).  Sometimes I can determine a common name for the galls, but there are so many different ones it is not easy.  The good thing is that leaf galls are completely harmless. For more information on galls please see Insect Galls on Trees and Shrubs. 
Diseases

• Bur oak blight  - Photo below
• Bacterial canker and fusarium wilt infected tomatoes.
• Cucumber with bacterial wilt.
• Hosta Virus X
• Sudden needle drop in Norway, black hills and blue spruce.
• Pine infected with diplodia tip blight and canker.
• Apples with bitter rot and sooty blotch/flyspeck.

A minute pirate bug, AKA the insidious flower bug, a beneficial predator.
 
Cluster of galls on underside of oak leaf.
 
Numerous galls on an oak leaf.
 

Galls that have been found falling from oak trees.
 
Beautiful fuzzy gall on oak leaf vein.
 
Symptoms of bur oak blight.