I was looking at a large gardenia and found three of these little pillowy white round things. I didn't manage to get a clear enough photo to show that the edges actually look stitched with a strand of some fiber.

I am guessing these are a cocoon for something, but what?


Sorry these are not that clear; I hope my verbal description helps too. Each one is smaller than my little fingernail.

Anyone know what these are?

It looks like Japanese wax scale (Ceroplastes japonicus) ..

http://www.clemson.edu/extensi...

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

There's other species of Ceroplastes, C floridensis ..

http://www.biodiversidadvirtua...

You can check geographic location ..

http://www.discoverlife.org/20...

You nailed it. Those google images (Ceroplastes japonicus) are precisely what I'm seeing there. I'll go remove those from the plant. Fortunately there were only three!

Keep looking, some scale hide under leaves, usually when they are young and they look different. They can also come from the soil.

If you don't watch for them you can find yourself with a bad infestation. I've had Camellia scale for years and spent a lot of time manually removing them, they can appear most of the year in milder conditions. Some scale have predators, I had a different type on a Holly tree but they got eaten by something, some ladybugs eat scale. This year I have had very few scale on Camellias, it seems something is eating them. Lacewing larvae eat some scale too.