Beech trees, oak trees, willows, but also herbs such as mint and even nettles can have galls. Plant galls are actually growths of the plant. The gall pathogen, an insect, which can be a gall wasp or mite or even a fungus, irritates the plant because a female gall wasp lays her egg in the leaf. The plant therefore quickly produces new cells in a proliferating manner. The plant tissue in the gall is soft and the larva can then eat it before it pupates and emerges as a wasp. Eddy: “So a gall wasp is galling the plant?” Matthijs: “So yes, you could say that expressions like ‘you are ruining my life’ have to do with the plant galls.
Zoëy: ‘Gallic, becoming gallic, spitting bile, do those kinds of expressions have to do with these plant galls?’
