Hi,
I was watering my plants yesterday morning and noticed a collection of small round white 'fluff' balls on the trunk of my acer, perhaps 5mm in diameter. They are a bit like spider egg sacks, fibrous and sticky and it looked as if litle spores came out of the inside. They also had a small bark-coloured, leaf shaped cover that sits over the top of them.
I originally thought it was where bark had come away from the trunk and white mould had grown underneath that was pushing the bit of bark out, but after closer inspection they can be scraped off the bark without any obvious damage to the acer itself.
I'm a real novice in the garden and I have search the internet to find information but cant find anything similar. Does anyone know anything about it? is it a parasite or fungus and can it do my acer any damage?
Many, many thanks for any help!
charlie2 - this is probably horse chestnut scale which attacks many shrubs and trees including sycamores and acers. The brown covering is the scale protecting the white waxy eggs. Most prevalent in early summer.
On large trees these can be tolerated as they do no permanent harm. On smaller ornamental trees scrape them off as soon as you see them, preferably before the eggs beneath the scales hatch.
On large trees these can be tolerated as they do no permanent harm. On smaller ornamental trees scrape them off as soon as you see them, preferably before the eggs beneath the scales hatch.