Unknown fungus, help (pics!)

[succulents4days]

An Oeceoclades perrieri seedling suddenly lost 2 of its newest leaves. A couple of days later, numerous dark-colored bumps appeared on the petioles. They appear to be fungal fruiting bodies and a quick look under the microscope seems to confirm this. I don’t know much about fungi; I hope there are members here who can lend some insight into what this is. Thanks!!!

[KatieM]

Are the bumps hard? Could it possibly be edema? I'm super curious. Never seen anything like this.. interested to see what our experts think.

[succulents4days]

Originally Posted by KatieM

Are the bumps hard? Could it possibly be edema? I'm super curious. Never seen anything like this.. interested to see what our experts think.

I tried not to touch them, though I did cut them off with a razor blade for examination. They seemed to be a similar firmness to the plant tissue, which is fairly firm. When the leaves dropped I told myself I provided too much water given the cloudy conditions we’ve had recently.

[KatieM]

If you are giving it too much water it could be edema. Particularly if the bumps are hard. If you get on St. Augustine Orchid Society they have info on edema. Since you cut them off you may want to spray something like physan20 on there to protect from any additional infections.

[estación seca]

Those looks like scale insects to me, not fungus. Plenty to read here on scale. If you have them on one plant you probably have them on other plants.

[succulents4days]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Those looks like scale insects to me, not fungus. Plenty to read here on scale. If you have them on one plant you probably have them on other plants.

Thanks for your reply. I am quite familiar with scale in their many forms, as I have them appear from time to time in my collection. This is behaviorally and visually a fungus. I know the pictures aren’t great. If someone needs better pictures then I can probably find the tissue frozen in my compost bin and prepare another slide. Also I forgot to add that the series of 4 photos were taken at 14x, 40x, 100x, and 400x magnification, respectively.