Sweetcicely (and all), I know it's mites becasue I have recently had to research them myself :( Just like Judy. The 1st, biggest giveaway is the roundish sunken dead areas. Typical mite damage. Those yellowish areas appear to be being attacked from behind, which is where mites love to hang out. (OP- any pics of the under side of the leaves?) Since you can't easily see mites, only their damage, a tried and true test (although I can't say that I see it) is to take a tissue, swab, cotton ball, etc, dampen it (H2O, or I use alcohol) and wipe the underside of the leaf. If you come up with a reddish tinge, you've got mites. But, since I don't really see anything when I do it, I just know what the damage looks like. If you google spider mites or mite damage, you should find pics. Also, orchid viruses are supposedly more or less uncommon. Most hobby growers have insect or fungal/bacterial damage if there's a problem, rather than viral, unless you happen to get an infected plant (again, more uncommon). But, after you've looked at enough pictures of both mites vs virus, you get an eye for what mite damage looks like. here's a discussion of this topic from this forum http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/orchids/msg0710185229356.html Here's some other picts http://www.ionopsis.com/Pests_and_Diseases.html http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/orchids/msg011644515336.html http://www.users.on.net/~gmcorbin/BOS/virus.html I'm no expert, but this just screams mite damage to me. Carolyn

If there is any doubt in your mind, you should return it to the nursery, and they should NOT give you any grief about taking it back. You might point out to them that they shouldn't have sold it in the first place. No nursery would want to be known for selling unhealthy plants. Hell, even Home Depot has a return policy.

my worry would be that if the soil is staying saturated, you're causing root problems for all the trees. Unless you want to be cycling through replacements, I'd fix the underlying problem the right way - which is getting the water out of there. One of our winery clients was having massive water problems in a few of their vineyard blocks, to the point where you could grab a vine and pull it right out of the ground - the roots were all rotted. Their consultant had them run french drains between the rows and they're now producing literally tons per acre. It works.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. The neighborhood has a lot of great trees- some oaks in front of the building that are more than 6 stories tall. Very interesting theory about the gas leak. Other maple trees seem to have the same problem (but less bad) but other species of trees in between them look fine, which is why I thought that an infection specific to maple was likely. It sounds like it's likely it's a goner but possible that it's a leaf problem that may resolve on its own? I'm thinking i should water it and just wait to see what happens in the spring. If it's not seeming healthy then get it cut down. Is there anything else I could do, tree fertilizer or any other suggestions? Thanks very much!