Try an insecticidal soap spray like 'Safer' brand. Might be the dreaded wooly adelgids. A huge pest of hemlocks that can kill a hemlock in a year if it's really infested.

Try an insecticidal soap spray like 'Safer' brand. Might be the dreaded wooly adelgids. A huge pest of hemlocks that can kill a hemlock in a year if it's really infested.

Scratch that...I just found it in Google based upon your description of the jumping activity when you touch the mass.

Flatid planthoppers..google that. Said insecticidal soaps are recommended but you should apply in the evening and wash it off the plants with a hose sprayer in the morning before the sun hits the leaves.

That's it, Dottie--thanks. Planthoppers, they are!

I get them every year but only on a couple plants so i squish what i can and don't worry about the rest. They seem partial to my night blooming lemon daylily scapes, buttered ranuncula, and hosta ventriculosa flower scapes. They don't seem to do much damge- just are ugly. I watched one year while a mantid ate one off the hostas.