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Wow I have never seen anything like this before. I hope someone can jump in and diagnose this for you. I'm so sorry this is happening to your plant! :(

Take care,
Lynn

Looks to me like some critter has developed a taste for plumeria buds, and taken a few bites of the bark as well.

I've had similar damage in the past, and I found it to be caused by snails. Strangely, only on two or three varieties of plumeria (particularly Thornton's Lemon Drop and Irma 5), and always on the tender young green growth, never on the older harder growth. I suspect that is your problem, nothing that a bit of snail bait won't take care of. And after a year or so, the plant repairs and fills in that kind of damage - yours doesn't seem to be too badly hurt at this point.

Thanks for the reply guys. You know, the interesting thing is that they're kept inside at night, so the only time snails would be able to do any damage would be durring the day when they're in the back yard. I always assumed that snails were active at night.

Also, this is the only plant that seems to be affected by this problem and all plants are always kept together.

Hmmmmm...

Here's a pic of a different branch that seems to be peeling...

Taking advantage of the fact I work in a greenhouse... I hauled my plumeria to work today... I figured a two month head start could only be a good thing for it. ðÂÂÂ

Jason,

Have you seen any grasshoppers?

I had a few on mine this summer and they like to chew...

Laura

No grasshoppers Laura, at least, not when I'm looking.

However I do keep a mulch, I know it's not hip with the status quo, but I suppose I could have picked up a slug some how. Think I'll have to turn up my mulch & check it out.

The plot thickens....

One or two of my trees had damage a few years back that was very strange (similar to yours but much deeper) and I just concluded some kind of bug gnawed into the branch. I haven't seen the damage since then.

I'll try to post the pictures later.

astrl

Where do you keep them inside? I had a couple of limbs on my plants that rubbed against the wall when I put them in the garage. The damage looks almost identical to yours. Does it have damage on other limbs of the plant, or primarily just the one limb? It could simply be that limb just rubbed against something in nightly storage.

I agree with Spiroan, that it could be from rubbing.

The other culprit could be a small caterpillar that chomps at night then hides under the soil in the pot during the day so it comes in with the plant at night. I've had caterpillars do that very thing, and some ate deep into the core of the tender green branches. Yuck!

I had an issue like that before and it was from slugs living in the drainage holes, they would come out at night and chow down. You may want to check the drainage holes in your pot to see if there is anything living in them...