Question for the Hive Mind: a Reader's Dieffenbachia

A reader e-mailed me to ask about a Dieffenbachia problem, which turned out to be something I hadn't seen before. Neither Google nor my books helped, and the few theories I came up with are mostly not borne out by the facts of the case, so I'm hoping someone out there has experience with this and can at least provide an ID, if not tell the person how to fix whatever it is.The most alarming

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