I've been curious about the appearance of tightly curled leaves at the tips of some of my beech trees for some time now. They aren't dead, still vibrantly green, but definitely droopy. You can see a few of them in this pic below.
So today I popped outside during a break in the rain, and pulled off a few samples to examine closer. Here are 2 of them:
Both had a web-like cocoon inside, but with a hole through them. I imagine that means no one's home anymore.
I went looking for more tightly coiled, unopened leaves and found two leaves with a creature like this on it - an aphid
Though this is an aphid, I don't think it's the Woolly Beech Aphid (introduced to N. America) that leads to beech leaf disease since Phyllaphis fagi bodies are described as "light bluish-green. ... Winged as well as wingless animals excrete white to bluish-white wax threads, giving them a woolly appearance" Woolly Beech Aphid The aphids I found have a dark band on their abdomens, but are definitely not in the blue-green range.
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