Euonymous scale.

I imagine this sucking insect pest came from China decades ago because it does not really bother Euonymus kiautschovicus from there, but does infest E. fortunei & E. japonicus from Japan, plus deciduous American Euonymus are also susceptible to great damage. The Winged Euonymus is not bothered by it. I saved the life of a Bigleaf Wintercreeper (E. fortune 'Vegetus' in the 1970's at my parent's house by cutting it low to the ground, below the infestation. I saw a good sized mass of Purple Wintercreeper at Morton Arboretum as a groundcover and growing up walls infested also in the 1980's and gone sometime later. I've seen various small bushy cultivars as 'Emerald gaiety' of E. fortune also killed off by infestation since the 1970's onward. This insect can also feed on and damage Bittersweet... read more, Boxwoods, English-Ivy, Japanese Pachysandra, Camellia, and some other plants.

If this is the same scale. I had it on my Camillia bush they live under the leaves and you almost have to scrub them off. I noticed that when I tried to take soap and water to clean each leaf there were "guardians" that would bite me. I had no ill effects from the bites and actually a mosquito is worst. Everyday I would check to see if they came back. Finally, I decided to use an insecticide to kill them. It still took several treatments. One suggestion though no matter what the bug. Spray the ground around the infested plant. Some of them may have fallen off and reinfected the plant. Good luck!

This scale went after a shrub in my back yard in Summer 2008 (Austin Texas) - it covered the trunk and branches completely! I sprayed it with a commercial bug killer for shrubs and flowers, had to dose it several times but realized I had to simply cut it down to a 2' nub, and then scrub the dead scale off of it after that. (Scrubbing the scale off of it gave me a good reference to see if it was coming back in the future!) This was a tough fight! The shrub has come back beautifully, but I am now fighting (2009) the scale on all of my 4 O'clocks! Over and over I spray, both the commercial sprays and my own soap/water spray. I realize now that I'm going to have to pull the affected ones up and out, I'll clean out around them, and I will continue to spray a soapy/oily treatment on them of... read moreten. I am treating the soil as well. This website and your readers' comments have helped me to know that I have a fight on my hands that won't be easy. Thanks all!