Need help in identifying parasite please

[DarrowKan]

Hi everyone,

I just joined this forum and I am also new to gardening. I'm not sure whether this is a suitable place to post this or not. So, sorry if I posted it wrongly.

I would like to have a parasite identified. Before that, please excuse for my bad English. I will try my best to describe it. These white-green scale looking parasites attached onto my plants stem. It is dried and attached very firmly only to the stem. I had tried but failed getting rid of it using my hand and some white powder had left on my hand. I'm not sure whether it is mould, fungus or plant. It maybe is not even a parasite. I have attached some of the image that I have taken yesterday for you to look at. In the images, one of infected plants is bougainvillea while the other I don't know its name. You can click the image and zoom in to have a closer look at the parasite.

Those infected plants are emaciated as they have much fewer leaves than those of the healthy ones. Some of them are even on the verge of dying with only a few leaves on. Beside that, these parasites targeted almost every species of my plants in my garden. It had been on the plants for a long time like about a year or so. I did not pay much attention to it and haven't taken any action until I had enough of it. For your more information, I live in Sabah, Malaysia. It is in tropical rainforest region where there is no 4 seasons in a year. It rains a lot here and it is humid and warm all year round.

I have tried to research for it online but I could not find something like it. So, I hope you guys can shed some light on identifying this pesky parasitic thing. It would be even better, perhaps, if you guys can show me a way to deal with it.

Thank you very much!

[!potatoes!]

that's lichen, which I wouldn't call parasitic or an 'infection'. I have doubts that it's actually responsible for the decline in your plants.

[DarrowKan]

Hi, potatoes!

Glad that you reply. From what I observed, plants that have those things really are weaker and more unhealthy. They have much fewer leaves and flowers (if have any flowers). I have seen plants that has part of it infected by this "thing" (the stem is covered in white colour) and that part is not looking good, with much fewer leaves. On the other hand, the other part of the plant is free from infection (the stem is green in colour) and it is much healthier, with more leaves. I think reason that the healthy part is still healthy is because infection has not spread there yet. So far I have not seen a plant, that is not infected by this parasite, is healthy.

[edit] I wish to post an image of the situation I described (partially infected plant) here. it is already night time here and I have not taken picture of it. I will do it and post it tomorrow morning.

[DarrowKan]

Hey potato!

You are correct. I found an few interesting article. One of them is this

From this site: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=411
"Conditions that favour such growth on branches and twigs include:
- tree or shrubs which are lacking in vigour, particularly those which are already to die back. In these circumstances the growth of lichen in particular is often unjustly blamed for the poor condition of an affected plant."

Tomorrow I will have a look at the plant's root problem to see whether it is due to water compacted soil or water logged soil. It rains a lot here, so I speculate it is the latter that causes the decline of plant.

Thank you for your help, potato

[rainbowgardener]

Agreed. It is lichen, which does not cause the death or decline of the plants, only takes advantage of it. Once the tree or shrub (I believe lichen is only found on woody plants) has lost its vigor and vitality, the lichen can come in and colonize the dead wood.

[DarrowKan]

Thank you guys! Finally this big mystery (for me of course ) is finally solved! Haha, I learnt some valuable lesson today. Now I will focus on getting the plants back in shape. Best of luck to you and happy gardening.