I just bought a hibiscus plant and I just noticed that the bark is lumpy. When I try to scratch it off with my fingernails, what comes off looks like flakes of bark with greenish white stem thus exposed underneath. Also I feel no sticky substance on the bark when I scrape off the lumps with my fingernails. Some of the lumps look really long like rice. it really doesn't look like they are insects buy I've never seen scale insects before. As I've never grown a hibiscus before I don't know if it is normal. Its a beautiful plant, it would be sad if its really scale. But if I ignore it an introduce it on my garden and its really scale then it would be a disaster!