I'm not posting this in the fungi forums because I'm not 100% sure its mold. Over night, virtually all the cedars on my property (in East Texas) developed what looks like orange slime mold. There are literally hundreds of cedars on my heavily wooded property. Is this slime mold? Is it harmful? Thanks!
It certainly is very interesting, isn't it? Maybe you should post it in the fungus section, just so more "fungal experts" will see the pictures. Good luck, I'm very interested to see the outcome of this thread.
could it be sap?? if there was damage to the trees recently and then the sap rose before the damage healed over, that might be it especially since you said it happened overnight and to almost all the trees. are you in an area where there were ice storms over the winter?
It is one of the Gymnosporangium juniper rusts (note your plants are junipers Juniperus, not cedars Cedrus). It is only moderately damaging to the juniper, but can be damaging to the alternate hosts (trees in the family Rosaceae, including apples, hawthorns, etc.). The fungus has different generations which alternate between the two host species, spores from these 'lumps of jelly' will infect apples or hawthorns etc., and then in the late summer, spores from infected apples etc will re-infect the junipers.
