Can anyone save my plant?

[Reusername]

My lovely plant has gone from healthy to dying in the space of three weeks. But nothing has changed. The branches are covered in white patches and marks and are drooping in strange positions. The leaves are dropping off and they are no longer dark and waxy. Help!!!

It could be pests, but to kill the plant they’dhave to be at a high level. So assume something catastrophic in conditions. First, where are you keeping it? Could it have got too cold? Second, take it out of the pot and look at its roots. Is the soil wet? Have the roots rotted or been eaten away?

Tell me more about the white patches, I can’t see them in the pictures. How thick are the patches? What shape? How big?

It looks like it could be a variety of polyscias? I have had one in the past that went from healthy to beyond hope quite suddenly. I think they are very happy and problem-free when they happen to be in conditions that they like, but utterly unreslient in the face of something being not-quite-right.

At this time of year I would guess at a room having got too cold. Or perhaps it has had too much water to cope with cold conditions.
I think they like quite warm conditions, brightness without direct sunlight, humidity and fairly free-draining soil.

I would ensure the room is fairly warm. If the plant is very wet I might dry to help it drain if there was some way to do that without root disturbance (eg, scrape off a top inch of compost or move to a warmer spot. If on the other hand it is dry and warm I would improve humidity, perhaps by spraying or placing a dish of water nearby

(It might also be helpful to give it more light, unless it is already in a bright position. At this time of year you are probably safe from overdoing the light, unless you put it in a very harshly bright south-facing window.)

Thank you I’m going to try all these things.

I've had one of those for several months and it is a bit touchy to say the least. Drops leaves at random for no reason at all.

I think polyscias can be quite tricky to keep happy. I have a tall one similar to yours that lived quite happily in our gym for ages with moderate light, regular misting and the occasional shower. In November, it started dropping leaves so I moved it into one of the bathrooms in the main house. I noticed this week it has a lot of new leaves so I assume it’s OK again. Apparently, DH had been leaving the gym doors open so it probably didn’t like the draught, even though it wasn’t anywhere near the door. I also have a small variegated one on one of the kitchen worktops and have never had any problems with that. I’ve found most of my houseplants love UFH which I assume is the constant temperature in the room so that might've helped as well.

@MereDintofPandiculation the patches are different. Some you can see look like little white lines and other parts of the plant branches are more white than green. I'll try to put up better photos.