Grammatophylum scriptum
The second thing I noticed about this plant was the $125 price tag on the side. The first thing I noticed was that the leaves were either frozen or fried. In September in San Francisco, I would bet on fried. The dead leaves did not show a pattern that I would associate with sunburn. It was very even over the whole plant and all sides.

Grammatophylum scriptum is a hot growing plant from South East Asia and New Guinea.It grows at low altitudes always near the ocean. It produces 4 foot flower spikes that will have 100 flowers. It is a beautiful plant, but can get very big. That is what keeps it from appearing in more collections.

What happened to the plant? The story of the plant is that it was bought to decorate an office. After blooming one of the office workers took it home, and shortly thereafter the leaves turned dark. Here is my take on what happened.

I took it out of the pot and the roots were not rotted. The pseudobulbs were shrunken. I bet the plant was not watered while it was in the office. The plant was transported home in a car and on the way she probably stopped to do some shopping, leaving the plant locked in the car. The plant is dry and the temperature in a car can get pretty high. I soaked the plant for a couple of hours, but the leaves are never coming back.

Here is the plan. I am going to cut off all the leaves. I am going to open up the root ball and remove at least half of the roots. I am going to divide it into two plants and then treat them as if they were back bulbs.

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Update after 2 weeks. After consideration and seeing that the damaged new growths died, I decided there wasn't much to save keeping the plant in large divisions. It would take years before the plant looked decent. Therefore I divided the plant into 8 individual back bulbs. They are potted in gravel and kept in low light. One of them had a new growth just barely starting. I might get a bloom in 2 to 3 years. It will be interesting to see how many develop into full plants.

Update after 9 months. Seven of the eight backbulbs have died. My other Grammatophylum scriptum is starting new growth, but no sign of activity from the remaining backbulb.