sk'mo
Active Member
because it doesn't really look anything like scale or any of the other effects of scale. Scale will also attack the foliage and the flowers. This is just on stems and stocks. My wife is a certified master gardener and worked in green houses for over a decade and she is stumped on this one. We are pretty sure its not any type of insect as well. Ill know more for sure when my microscope gets here though.
I've seen something similar on Purple-Leaf Sandcherry, but it was black. It was a soft scale, hemispherical in appearance. Scales are sap-suckers and don't attack leaves or flowers, at least not that I'm aware of. Desiccation is the result of the sap-sucking.
Good luck on the ID. I'm curious to know.
I'd still suggest spraying them withe some IS and picking them off.