OMG...WOW. I've never found a picture of orchid roots to be unbearably gross before, but yours wins the medal for first orchid photo that actually made me gag (I think it's because my brain registered the pile of brown things as a big pile of worms). Holy shamoley, what a mess.

You just won the award for "bravest rescue" of the year in my book.

Anyway, I believe those are chunks of tree fern fiber stuffed in with your roots. I've encountered it before, but never in such large pieces. Tree fern fiber is a dark, spongy material occasionally used for moisture retention and aeration in orchid mixes (although it seems to have lost its "aeration" properties in your case...that's some old, compacted potting mix!) It can be sold shredded, in "chunks," and in "felt." I looked up some pics of the "chunks" and it appears to be what you're dealing with.

Anyway, you did a kickass job of cleaning up that orchid. It looked a MILLION times better after you fixed it up. You mentioned in your other "Orchiata" thread that some of the p-bulbs are dark and don't look good on your cym. Now, I'm not an expert on Cymbidiums, as I just recently started getting into them, but on the ones I've seen, having old pseudobulbs that are "out of commission" hanging on to a bulb that's growing beautifully seems to be relatively common. I'm not sure why or if it has something to do with the growth cycle or the amount of energy needed for the plant, but they seem to abandon the already-bloomed bulbs fairly rapidly.

I bought two in bloom recently, and they both are super-healthy plants with one bulb blooming, one new growth in progress, and one dead bulb just sitting there. All of the ones I looked at were like that, too. At any rate, from what I can tell, the dried-up brown bulb doesn't seem to be any indicator of the plant's overall health...it's just a used-up hanger-on. I'm not sure if the bulbs are still storing energy for the plant when they're like that, or if they're just, well, dead...but I'm leaving at least one on each of my plants for the time being because that's how they all seemed to come. When my new growth blooms next season, I'll watch to see if the current bulb goes the same route or if it stays green like other orchids.

Does yours have an ID or is it a mystery plant?

And, again, bravo on that rescue...you're a brave soul!