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Insect eggs or fungal fruiting body on rose?

WillowBarkWillowBark Posts: 243
edited January 2022 in Problem solving
Hi all, I noticed these tiny black spheres with holes in the middle on the stem of a rose yesterday. They're not like anything I've ever seen before, although that may well just be because I am fairly new to gardening. At first I thought perhaps they were some sort of insect gall or egg, as the holes in the middle looked like exit holes, but now, due to the dieback in the rest of the stem, I am wondering if perhaps they are actually tiny fungal fruiting bodies and maybe it's some sort of canker. I tried Googling rose canker fruiting bodies, but all it showed me was blackening of the stem, not the little bobbles that I've got on my plant. 

Please could someone offer some advice on a) what it is, and b) if it is an infection of some sort, what I can do to treat it - or whether it is game over for the rose and I need to bin it before it infects all my other roses.

Thanks.




Posts

  • WillowBarkWillowBark Posts: 243
    Having had a look at my other roses, there are a couple of others that are showing similar things, although nothing like to the degree of the one above. As such, I am leaning more towards it being a fungus/canker, but again any confirmation or advice on how to tackle would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!
  • LunarSeaLunarSea Posts: 1,923
    They do look like fungal (or even lichen) fruiting bodies but I've never seen anything like that on a rose before.
    Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. 

    I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
  • valerierobertsvalerieroberts Posts: 726
    As @pansyface said, think black scale insects. If you can rub them off it will see to the problem. Valerie 
  • WillowBarkWillowBark Posts: 243
    Thank you all for your comments.

    @pansyface and @valerieroberts, I will try scraping some off tomorrow and see what happens. Fingers crossed! It's hard to focus on them, but when I peer at them very closely on the plant (tricky to do without poking your eye out), it does look like there could be little segmented carapaces, although I can't see legs like I would normally see on other, larger insects. If they are scale insects, what do you think could explain what looks like little holes in their back? Does anything eat them or parasitise them?

    @VictorMeldrew Yes, that's what I thought, too! My grandma's always had roses and I've never seen anything like this on any of her plants. Very strange. I think that as well as trying Valerie's scale insect removal method, I may see if I can get a general fungicide as a "better safe than sorry" approach in case it starts to spread, although I usually try to avoid chemicals as much as I can. Fingers crossed I shan't have to use it, but we shall see.

    Thanks again to everyone for their help.
  • WillowBarkWillowBark Posts: 243
    @pansyface Ah, fair enough! In that case, I think I prefer the ones with holes in :smiley:
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    The shells are covering the eggs that will hatch in Spring.
    If there are just a few I just scrape them off with a fingernail, if there a lots I use a small fingernail brush to shift them.
    Once they're removed from the stem they will not hatch.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • WillowBarkWillowBark Posts: 243
    @Pete.8 Useful to know, thank you. There are quite a lot of them currently spread across three plants, so I definitely don't want them all to reproduce. I think it is time for me to get scraping! Thank you for the advice.
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