Cottony Maple Leaf Scales Producing Eggs

 

Cottony Maple Leaf Scale is one of several cottony scales in the genus Pulvinaria. Cottony camellia scale and cottony maple scale are the other common species. You can find these now on their most common hosts: maple and dogwood. Stand under a tree and look up and you will see cottony masses about the size of a cotton swap stuck to the bottom of leaves. These are the egg masses. They each contain many hundred eggs that will hatch soon. The crawlers will settle and feed on the leaves all summer then migrate back to branches in fall before leaf-drop.

 

Cottony maple leaf scale, Pulvinaria acericola, ovisacs on dogwood leaves.