Scale is a kind of pest, a mite I'm told, which looks like a little flat
or slightly bulging turtle-shell a few mm long. They stick onto plants
and withdraw nutrients, as do aphids and mealy bugs. Then they produce sugars
which encourage sooty mould which coats the plant. While it doesn't directly
hurt the plant, the mould can prevent the plant from getting the light it
needs. But the scale is a real problem, withdrawing valuable nutrients.
Even though they don't typically produce as much damage as can aphids
or mealy bugs, they irritate me. Mess with my _Sarracenia_ and you mess with
me.
Well, this time of year it seems that a lot of the Scale dies. When I scrape
a normal scale with my fingernail, they are moist inside (yum!). But these
possibly dead scale, when I scrape them, are mostly dry inside. In fact, the
inside consists of zillions of tiny little, uniformly sized, grains. Am
I seeing scale eggs? Does anyone know the natural history of these damned
little monsters?
On a irritating note, I found that I killed my _U.praelonga_! A few weeks
ago I noticed some _U.subulata_ growing with the _U.praelonga_. This is
unacceptable for me. Since the _U.subulata_ infestation was mild,
I simply cut all the green growth off the plant, and left a dense mass
of rhizoids, stolons, and bladders, which I figured was probably
exclusively _U.praelonga_. Well, I checked today, and it is all dead! This
surprised me very much, since with this sort of species, usually all you need
is a tiny fragment and soon you have a whole new plant. Oh well. Do any of
my usual trading partners out there have spare material of this plant? It
is distinctive---some of the leaves it produces are small, but others are
long and grasslike...
B