Yep, a scale insect. Not sure what the species name is, but it is one that has become very common in Britain in the last few years. Probably an invasive alien species, as it wasn't around before.
This is actually a remarkable photo of scale. The little buggers are so clear. Fredfred, scale is a nasty insect because its hard shell makes it resistant to many control methods. There are some posts about control methods on the forums. You might want to use the search function to find and read through some of those.
We have those exact little nasties down here. Aspirin dissolved in vinegar and rubbing alcohol and then sprayed directly on them along with a butterknife to gently scrape them and lift them was the only thing that worked for me.
Thanks for ID, a bit of googling, and it looks alot like the European Elm Scale pictures around. I've got to say, the invasion was rapid though. The photo was a crop, and it doesn't show the extent of the infection which is all over, even onto the base of the leaves! I don't particularly care for the tree, so I might try the axe and lighter fluid cure before it spreads...
Off with its head, then! I had snow scale on a couple of my orange trees, and that was the only thing I could do in the end to save the rest of the orchard.
The scale insect I've seen has been on several different plants, including Laurus nobilis, Acer pseudoplatanus, Fatsia japonica, Hedera helix, and others, so mine at least isn't European Elm Scale which is reported to be restricted to elms. But the genus Eriococcus which that is in does include many other species.
There's a fungus, Septobasidium, which uses scale insects as pumps to obtain nutrients from within trees. I'm wondering if the white fuzz could be this? The drawings I've seen show the fungus over the scale insect, but perhaps this is an early stage. Anyone know?
