[1] The quercus in its name is the genus name for oak, while "mamma" is Latin for "breast", presumably a reference to the "nipple" on the gall.

These eggs along with the resulting wasp larvae stimulate the tree to produce small, inconspicuous leaf galls in the spring.

[9] The mated females fly or crawl to newly elongated twigs where they insert their eggs through the phloem to be in contact with the cambium, where undifferentiated (meristematic) cells are stimulated to grow the fall bullet galls.

[8] The larva within the gall can be parasitized by parasitoid wasps, including Sycophila dubia (Eurytomidae), [10] Torymus denticulatus (Torymidae), Mesopolobus sp.

[6]: 294 The bullet gall can induce the host tree to exude a honeydew-like sweet material that fosters growth of sooty mold.