Sometimes brown, rough, scaly areas appear on the leaves of the Jade plant, it can be only several bumps or covers an extended area of the leaf surface. What is it? What wrong caused it? How to control Jade Plant scaly leaves?
Hi, I’m a horticultural consultant and want to discuss why the leaves of Jade plants get rough and scaly. First, I want to ensure you don’t mistake scale bugs on the Jade Plant with the scaly leaves. They are different subjects.
Scale insects are tiny bugs on houseplants which will become a trouble if you don’t control them immediately. To distinguish them, I use my nails. If I can separate the scales with my nail without any damage to the leaf surface, it is a Scale insect. you can see them in the following Image.
I discussed scale bugs on the jade plant in my other post, read it to know how to control them.
Anyway, if you cannot separate the brown scales on your jade plant leaves, they are damaged tissue of the leaf which are turned to cork. But why does the fresh tissue of your Jade plant leaves turn to cork?
Cork tissue is a specialized plant tissue that forms a protective layer on the outer surface of stems, roots, and leaves. It’s made up of dead cells that have thick, waxy walls. This layer helps to prevent water loss, protect against pests and diseases, and insulate the plant from extreme temperatures.
Succulents, being adapted to arid environments, often develop cork tissue as a means of conserving water. This is why you might see scaly or crusty patches on their leaves. These patches are essentially cork tissue that has formed to reduce water loss.
Now let’s discuss the following images:
Brown Scaly areas on Jade plant leaves
Based on the image, it’s likely that the scaly appearance of the jade plant’s leaves is due to natural cork tissue formation.
As mentioned earlier, cork tissue is a protective layer that plants, especially succulents like jade plants, develop to conserve water. The scaly patches you see are likely dead cells with thick, waxy walls that form this protective layer.
I can think of a few reasons why this might occur:
- Age: As the plant matures, it’s more likely to develop cork tissue.
- Environmental Stress: Factors like drought, extreme temperatures, or poor soil quality can trigger the plant to produce more cork tissue as a defence mechanism.
- Natural Variation: Some jade plant varieties might simply be more prone to developing cork tissue.
Brown or black bumps on Jade plant leaves
But sometimes the scaly patch is similar to the bumps on the Jade plant, they are often due to edema, do you know where edema comes from?
When the soil is warm and moist, water absorbed by a plant’s roots may exceed the water lost through a plant’s leaves. Conditions preventing effective water loss include high relative humidity, low light intensity, cool air temperatures and poor ventilation. Periods of cloudy weather, or an increase in relative humidity resulting from cooling air temperatures, can make plants susceptible to edema. Edema is associated with oil sprays that interfere with normal leaf water loss.
I discussed edema in Jade plants in my other post. You can read it and find out how to control it.
The end,
There are three possibilities for Scale on Jade plant leaves:
- Scales insects.
- Plant defence responds to Stress to protect its cells from losing water, attacks of pests and diseases, etc. I discussed pests like mealybugs, Mites, and aphids and diseases like mold, Powdery mildew and Botrytis on Jade plants in my other posts.
- Edema
I discussed every above factor. If you have any problem with your Jade plant, please let me know in the comments, you can ask me your questions and I will answer as soon as possible.
Elahe Rabiei
Hi, I’m Elaheh. My Academic major is plant protection, and houseplants are my expertise. As a houseplant lover, my house is full of indoor plants and it is my passion to take care of them. Hence, I’m here to share my knowledge and experience about growing healthy houseplants. I am also a plant protection advisor, so feel free to ask me any questions you may have.