plants hate me

I'm not much of a green thumb when it comes to houseplants, and I need some help identifying a suspected pest on a Schefflera Arboricola I purchased yesterday for my (future) cham's enclosure. The plant looks pretty healthy overall, but when I looked closer at the stems, there are these weird...

Long story short: I don't have a cham yet but I'm still working on setting up the enclosure and I need one more plant. Long story long: I've already killed a hibiscus (although further inspection showed that the plant appeared to have no root system so it may not have been my fault) and a...