Can anyone help me with question concerning Arborvitae trees in PA?

Question:Some of my arborvities have these tiny brown smooth circular looking things on them. When I pick them off, they appear to have white powder in them. I don't know if it is a fungus, disease or insect. Please help.

Answers:
Arborvitaes bear male & female flowers in spring. The male flower is a single entity that appears at the terminal end of its scale like needles. They release pollen that looks like a powder when squeezed. Is this possibly what you are seeing on your arborvitae? The flowers will drop off the plant on their own and you should soon see new cones developing. Imature cones are initially a very light green color, but they will turn brown as the season progresses.

P.S. There are two types of scale, hard and soft bodied. You could not squeeze a hard bodied scale between your fingers, their shell is too hard to do this. All scale suck sap, therefore, squeezing a soft bodied scale would produce wet, slimy mush, not a powder.

Image of immature cones: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/im...