Author: (Meyrick, 1912)
Tea flush worm
Species Overview:
Adult: 11-15 mm wingspan; forewing purplish-fuscous suffused with blackish, covered by a large number of shining leaden grey stripes and whorls, becoming white at costa; hindwing dark fuscous.
Larva: up to 11 mm long; abdomen greenish, head dirty yellow with a dark marginal spot.
Pupa: within a pupal cell made from an older portion of the leaf.
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Cydia leucostoma male
External characters: 11-15 mm wingspan; head dark fuscous, face white; palpi white; thorax grey, with a more or less developed blackish bar behind collar. Forewing elongate, dilated posteriorly, costa gently arced, apex obtuse, termen straight, little oblique. General colouration of forewing purplish-fuscous suffused with blackish; interspaces between costal strigulae whitish, producing irregular broken violet-leaden metallic striae; ocellus enclosed by two violet-leaden metallic streaks, posterior followed by an irregular whitish ochreous streak; upper half of ocellus suffused with whitish ochreous; an irregular patch of whitish ochreous suffusion above ocellus; two large yellowish-white strigulae at apex. Cilia leaden grey with a dark fuscous basal line finely edged with ochreous white, more broadly at apex. Hindwing dark fuscous, thinly scaled on basal half; cilia iridescent-whitish with dark fuscous basal line (Meyrick, 1912; Robinson et al., 1994).
male gen. Cydia leucostoma
Genitalia: Tegumen fairly broad, with small spines apically. Valva long and narrow, ventral margin without notch; cucullus long, covered with both thin setae and thick spinescent setae. A group of smaller spinescent setae present between basal opening and ventral margin of valva. Aedeagus small, simple, tapering apically.
Female:
Cydia leucostoma female
Cydia leucostoma female 2
External characters: Similar to male.
female genitalia C. leucostoma
Genitalia: Ductus bursae long and slender; ductus seminalis situated medially. Sterigma reduced to a U-shaped sclerite. Corpus bursae with one large signum.
Taxonomic note
This species is placed in the genus Cydia. According to Dr Komai (personal communication) this is however not correct. The matter will need further research.
Biology
Moths fly from May to October. Larvae attack shoots of Camellia sinensis (tea). Pupation occurs mostly within a pupal cell made from an older portion of the leaf.
According to Bainbrigge Fletcher, 1920, much of its habits are the same as those of Homona coffearia.
Host plants:
Camellia sinensis ; also on wild tea.
Damage:
attacked tea shoot (leucostoma)
Larvae attack tea, making tight rolls of the bud and top leaves of young shoots. In addition to reducing the yield of tea, infestation of this species affects the quality of tea (Tamaki, 1991).
Distribution:
India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Indonesia (Java, Brunei).
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.
Attractantia:
Z 8E 10-12Ac (Witzgall et al., 1996b)
Parasitoids:
Bracon habetor (Braconidae)
Apanteles aristaeus (Braconidae)
Fornicia sp. (Braconidae)
Eriborus sp. (Ichneumonidae)
Plectochorus sp. (Ichneumonidae)
Hexamermis sp. (Nematoda)
(Muraleedharan and Selvasundaram, 1986; Selvasundaram and Muraleedharan, 1987; Subbiah, 1989; Subbiah, 1995)