Snake Plant: rhizome rot from overwatering — what does it look like?

Leaves yellowing and going soft or squashy at the very base while the tips stay firm. Leaves falling over at soil level. Foul smell. Pull each leaf. Any that lifts out with a mushy base was already detached. Salvage firm leaves as cuttings; the rhizome is usually unrecoverable.

Snake Plant: cold exposure — what does it look like?

Translucent, water-soaked patches after cold, later turning brown and papery. Below about 50°F causes cell damage. Cut damaged tissue away and keep it dry and warm.

Snake Plant: sitting in a cachepot — what does it look like?

Plant declines with no obvious error. Water pools unseen in the outer decorative pot. Check the cachepot. This kills more snake plants than any watering can.

Field Guide/Snake Plant

What went wrong

Snake Plant

Dracaena trifasciata

Advertised as impossible to kill. This is a lie of omission.

The snake plant is not unkillable. It is un-underwaterable, which is a different claim entirely. It stores water in thick leaves and rhizomes and needs almost nothing from you — and the standard well-meaning watering schedule that keeps a fern alive will rot a snake plant from the base within a season.

Almost every dead snake plant died of kindness. It is the plant most likely to have been killed by an owner doing exactly what they thought they were supposed to.

Usually one of these

3 Likely Causes

Ranked by how often it is actually this.

01
Rhizome rot from overwatering
Overwhelmingly the cause
What you saw
Leaves yellowing and going soft or squashy at the very base while the tips stay firm. Leaves falling over at soil level. Foul smell.
What it means
Pull each leaf. Any that lifts out with a mushy base was already detached. Salvage firm leaves as cuttings; the rhizome is usually unrecoverable.
02
Cold exposure
Occasional
What you saw
Translucent, water-soaked patches after cold, later turning brown and papery.
What it means
Below about 50°F causes cell damage. Cut damaged tissue away and keep it dry and warm.
03
Sitting in a cachepot
Common and invisible
What you saw
Plant declines with no obvious error. Water pools unseen in the outer decorative pot.
What it means
Check the cachepot. This kills more snake plants than any watering can.

The question you actually have

Dead or dormant?

Snake plants grow so slowly that months of no change are normal and mean nothing. Judge by firmness, not growth. Squeeze the base of each leaf: firm is alive, spongy is rotting. Even a single firm leaf can be cut into sections and rooted, though variegated cultivars revert to plain green from leaf cuttings.

If it did not make it