How bad is this little problem?

10 years ago

I noticed this Echeveria had dropped a few leaves, and upon further inspection (and more leaves dropping when I picked it up) that it had blackened along the stem. I don't think I overwatered it, and it is in a fast draining mix. I know this plant won't survive, but I am wondering if this is something that may spread to any of my other plants? I had it in a tray with others, but none were touching.

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Comments (4)

rosemariero
10 years ago
Hmmm, I don't think I've ever seen that on my Echeveria. If you know this one isn't going to make it, I'd experiment to find out. I'd see if the black stuff would scrape off the fuzz of the stem. Additionally, I'd cut the stem to see if the innards of the stem were black (I think that would indicate rot). If not inside the stem, it might be fungal. I don't think I'd worry about it spreading to nearby plants unless there were insects involved (flying or crawling). It would be safer to quarantine this one from others, though...or toss it now. Maybe you could propagate any clean leaves that might be left?
greybird_keke
Original Author
10 years ago
Rosemarie, I thought that was an excellent suggestion since I don't have anything to lose, and also I enjoy doing stuff like that! I was a little surprised at what I found....I expected that black stuff would be all over my fingers, but I couldn't even get it off of the plant. It was stuck tightly. The stem wasn't rotted....it was moist right inside the skin (perhaps normal for a succulent?), but the middle was so tough that I couldn't break it with my fingers. Now I'm even more curious as to what happened!
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rosemariero
10 years ago
That IS a curious thing, GK! Good you experimented, but sorry no solution to what happened/why, etc. :/ I'll be watching my plants for similar.
Colleen E
10 years ago
I have had the same thing, on just one of my E. 'Doris Taylor' rosettes. I, too, checked for rot, and it wasn't; it was just some sort of black crap on the outside of the stem, and I was able to kind of scrape most of it off. I wondered if it was some weird fungal thing. It came along with gradually yellowing and dropping leaves, but after I scraped off the black, the yellowing and leaf drop actually stopped. I'm just kind of careful about checking my 'Doris'es for this kind of mess now. I've never seen similar on any other Echeveria...yet; cross my fingers. For me, the black stuff was tough to get to scrape off. I just resorted to a razor blade...desperation, haha. I did it quite carefully. What you've got might be a thicker layer of black than I had, however, and trying to remove it might harm the stem/remove too much of it.

This post was edited by teatree on Mon, Jun 24, 13 at 12:49