September 14th: These strange growths are called 'galls', and when I told my wife what they were, she said they made human sex seem clean, neat and tidy. Here's why: bugs like aphids bite the bottom of the leaf, secreting special chemicals. The leaf reacts by growing the gall, which is like a defence mechanism. What it doesn't realize is that the bug lays eggs within the gall, which serves as the new home for the young ones as they hatch and eat. When the gall turns red, it is ready to burst open, Alien-like, to release the juvenile insects into the world. The good news is that the plant survives all of this just fine. On the up side, it does make human reproduction seem downright neat.
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