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Weird growth (?) on finger lime tree
(lemmy.nz)
Hi everyone,
I've had this finger lime tree for a number of years now, and I have never noticed this sort of growth (?) or bug (?) or (??) before.
It doesn't look normal for sure. Tried to scratch it off with a branch, but it wouldn't come off. I'm sure if I scraped it, it would.
I'm leaning towards scraping it off. Is this an indication of worse things to come? I've no idea what this is.
I live in Melbourne, Australia.
Thank you! ๐ซ
Edit: To clarify, it is the red thing with the white dots around it.
Ah, this is true. I didn't think about this. ๐ This poor tree has been through the ringer. When I lived at a higher elevation, it nearly died in its first year because of how cold it got. It recovered really well, and now survives all weather. I guess being my first native tree, I go in to protective mode because so many bugs seem to like to eat it, too!
I did see my first honey bee today visiting the flowers, and it had some decent-sized pants. My usual panic (might be allergic) was replaced with "Ah.. Hello, bee <3"
I'm glad it's doing well! I've had good luck taking the whole leaf from one overrun tree to another untouched one, so I don't have to squeeze the caterpillar. Maybe there's a non- native citrus tree that could handle a caterpillar or two? You don't have to save them all, Nature wouldn't.
There's no other non native (or native) citrus tree I could give it to. Suppose I could try to entice the magpies to have it, but I don't have any other bushes or trees that produce anything edible, so the caterpillar might not take to them. I'd have to huck it over the fence to the neighbours' tomatoes ๐