Brown leaves and black spots on Miltassia Shelob
 

Hi! I'm new to this forum. I joined specifically to get help with my orchid that I just purchased, and probably help with future orchids, hah!

So, I bought this plant about two weeks ago, because it had healthy looking roots, many pseudobulbs, and leaves. There were several spikes (about 8 total), some of which had unopened flowers. Anyway, within a few days of bringing it home, the flowers started dropping, including the unopened blooms. So, I cut down all the spikes that were dying with sterilized garden scissors, and removed some of the dead leaves.

I uploaded pictures of the plant before, and the plant now. Any advice would be helpful. I'm not sure what the name of it is, but it has a tag from Matsui Nursery that says "Odontoglossums/Oncidiums intergenetics." As you can see, there are various brown and yellow areas, black spots, and the pseudobulbs are beginning to look shriveled. The roots look okay to me.

I watered it once, yesterday, with about a 1/2 gallon of filtered water and a tiny (less than 1/4 teaspoon) of orchid fertilizer because it seemed so, so dry, and because of the shriveled pseudobulbs. I don't have any direct sun light in my apartment, but it was six feet away from a set of sliding glass doors that face south to a large covered balcony. I moved it further back in the room where it still receives indirect light, because I was afraid it was getting burned.

Any help or advice on what's going on with this plant would be appreciated! Also if anyone knows the plants name, I'd love to know. Thanks so much if you read this—sorry it's so long.

Hi -

Looks like a Miltassia - Miltonia x Brassia.

The larger dry areas on foliage could be from burn. The small black spotting looks like typical Oncidium spotting.

Older pbulbs will shrivel some.

While it's blooming lower light is ok, but in order to rebloom it will probably require higher light. A bright east or west window if you have one. All my indoor orchids sit directly on the windowsills - even a few inches back decreases the light they receive quite a bit. After being in lower light for a bit - the plant may burn if not slowly acclimated to higher light a bit at a time.

Looks like a very nice plant!

Hello, thank you for your response! I'm a little less worried about my Miltassia now. I like it a lot and I hope to keep it going for awhile. It was $15 at Trader Joe's. Most of the orchids they get don't have as many spikes and bulbs, so I jumped on it!

Do you think it's OK where it is for now? Or should I try and repot it?

I think I will keep it a little further back and see if the browning/burning slows down.

I think it's safe to wait for the blooms to be done before repotting.
The parts that look possibly burned, looks like that happened a bit ago - it's probably ok where you have it, as it doesn't sound like it's getting much light there. A south window - especially facing a covered patio area- probably isn't getting any direct light this time of year, so even much closer to the window I don't think it should burn there.
In winter south windows can get a lot of light - but again, facing the covered patio, your's may not.
I have trouble reblooming my miltassia even getting some direct light in a west window. I put it out to get morning sun last summer and eventually I got one spike on it. I'm not sure how much light these want to rebloom. Hopefully someone with more success reblooming these will chime in.

Ah, well, all the blooms did fall off (even the closed ones) and I trimmed the spikes down because they were turning brown. The first two pictures are from the first day I brought it home. The browning of the leaves seemed to have appeared or increased since then, so I took the next eight photos yesterday. So there are no spikes left. :(

Thank you for all the extra information about lighting. I'll keep that in mind! :)