Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry inspector Lisa Hassell collected the mealybug Phenacoccus multicerarii, a new continental record, from a retail nursery in Fernandina Beach (Nassau County, on 15 June 2011). On a return visit to the store, the mealybug was observed in high numbers on numerous host plants. Three days later, an additional find was made at a nursery in Apopka that had exchanged plant material with the nursery in Jacksonville. No further infestations were reported until October 2012, when a heavy infestation was discovered on a residential planting of coleus in Cooper City (Broward County). This mealybug was described in 2007 from a sample collected in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1949 from an unknown host (Granara de Willink and Szumik 2007). This 2-page fact sheet was written by Ian Stocks, and published by the UF Department of Entomology and Nematology, April 2013.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in993
Health hazard evaluation report: HETA-94-0096-2433, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Gainesville, Florida, Miami, Florida.
