Those are adult scale insects. They've either been lurking on your plant, brought from the garden center or some other plant in your home is infested and the insects have been shuffled around.

Wow, that's weird how I didn't even see the scale until after I clicked on the photo (what rotating a photo will do to your perspective, I tell ya!).

Yep, definitely scale. Be sure to check your other plants (if you have any) as these buggers do spread.

Planto

Planto, don't feel bad, I didn't see scale either. All I saw were brown spots that looked embedded in leaves.

Modern, did you buy the Bird of Paradise at Home Depot or a similar big-box store? Toni

Thanks for all of the responses.

Hopefulauthor, Yes, I purchased it at the Home Depot. Quickly learning that maybe the big box stores are not the best place to purchase plants.

Regardless, It's a big, beautiful white bird of paradise. 8 ft. tall. There is only one leaf that is (visibly) showing the scale bugs. I'm going to work hard to remove them and get everything under control.

Just because you don't see them on other leaves doesn't mean they're not present on other leaves btw. What you see are the adults, the "babies" are too small to see with the naked eye. Scale is notorious for spreading, so if you have any neighboring plants, just be sure to treat them as well as a precaution.

My Mom gave me a cactus a couple years ago from Lowes. I didn't see anything on it when I inspected it, but a couple weeks later, it was covered in scale and just about every one of its "neighbors" were showing signs of scale. I had to chunk everyone.

Planto