Try to find some clean pieces of the vine, break them off from the mother, stick in a jar of water, and root them. Once rooted, you can repot those. Mealies devastated a number of my plants this past year and they don't just settle on the plant or in the soil but on the pot sides, on windowsills and even on walls or floors. You have to make sure that you wipe down the entire area where the plant was to hope to get rid of them. Aside from using straight rubbing alcohol on a q-tip, you could try some Bayer Advanced as a systemic. Read the dierctions on how much to mix and how often to use. External sprays other than maybe alcohol/water and possibly Neem, are usually ineffective against mealies.

Are you sure it had mealy bugs? I don't use pesticide sprays ! -- for mealies, just dab them with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol. The chemicals you've used have probably contributed to the plant's demise. You say it's a huge plant, so what I'd do is take some cuttings (about 6" long). Wash them in dish-soapy water that's a comfortable temperature for your hands (not too hot or too cold). Be certain that all the bugs are off of the cuttings, rinse, then put the cuttings in a glass of water. If there's enough life left in them, they will grow fine in water for a LONG time, and if the mother plant dies you'll have the new starts.

Hi hoovb, Thank you for responding. I suppose it has but the tree is too tall for me to see clearly. My Butia which is not as tall is showing the same symptoms. The dates came and fell in what seemed to be more than usual, then one night I actually dreamed about the spear falling off. I thought it was from me reading so much about dying palms. Sure enough I went outside that morning and saw what looked like a large long yellow tail in the center of my Butia...a few days later it sectioned into parts and turned brown and fell to the ground. Now this happened on my largest palm with just the dates falling in just really really large amounts so much so that we had be scoop them out of the pool for like a week. It was about a month later that all the fronds turned brown. The Butia is so far still green.

It's a Cycas revoluta (a cycad though, not any true palm). Rain in and off itself should not be the cause of this, unless there a drainage problem. How cold has it been? I have only seen mine look like this after prolonged subfreezing cold. Can't believe this was an issue in the Bay Area (and I probably get three times as much annual rain as you if not more!) Cut out the dead parts, the plant should recuperate this season. Cycads are BUILT TO LAST!