PS-TheHoyan
Vol. 11, #6
Above Left: Hoya chlorantha Rech. when the flowers first open.
Above Right Hoya
chlorantha Rech. after the flowers have been
open for a day.
Wayman’s Science Fiction
(or did someone else write
it)?
I’m not about to try to point out all the errors I’ve found in Fraterna or all the other places where Kloppenburg has published but, when looking for something else, if I bump into a very obvious error that I think might prove confusing to others, I’ll jump right on it. I found such an error (or rather some errors) just now in Fraterna 16 (2): 2003. They are on page 14, in the text describing the pictures on the opposite page. No author is noted here but, traditionally, this page entitled “Photo Gallery Descriptions” is the work of Ann Wayman. I apologize if this was not the case here.
While not an error, the author says that Hoya australis blooms in late fall in the northern hemisphere. I am sure it does but it also blooms in the early spring in the northern hemisphere. I have found that a newly planted cutting will take quite a long time to fill a pot and it won’t bloom at all until it is a mature plant with its roots pot bound or nearly so. Then it blooms whenever the weather is warm and there is a lot of light. I have found it reluctant to bloom in cold weather and in rainy weather.
I’m not convinced that the one pictured and described here as Hoya merrillii is actually that species but I’m not 100% certain it isn’t so, I’ll skip this. I’ll skip Hoya bella too as I believe just about everybody knows what it is.
It is Hoya
neoebudica that caught my eye, due to the fiction the writer
presented. She (or he) said that it was
“Described in the Linnean (sic) Society Journal in1937. This is completely false. It was published and described in the Bulletin
du Museum National d’Historie Naturelle, Series II, # iv on page 294. The only thing about the Fraterna author’s
statement was that was true,
was the year of publication, 1937.
She (or he)
was correct in doubting that the plant pictured was what she or he had labeled
it, so, I ask, why the aitch picture it with that label? Why not give it an
identifying number that one can refer to once one finds out what it really is? It certainly is not Hoya neoebudica.
On the
same page she (or he) wrote of Hoya chlorantha. Here this writer says, “Here we have
a flat flower as opposed to a campanulate one.” The picture looks correct for this species to
me. Mine, when the
flowers first open appear campanulate but by the end of the first day, when
completely open, appear more or less flat. By then, the corolla margins and the tips of
its lobes have turned under, making the corolla lobes appear narrower. The one real error here is in her (or his)
comment that “Hoya chlorantha, like Hoya camphorifolia, is supposed to
have a deciduous peduncle bit.” I don’t
know what a “peduncle bit” is. I looked
that phrase up in all my references and none of them listed such a part. I presume that a “peduncle” was what was
meant. Let me say that whomever wrote
this tripe should make a career of writing science fiction… the scary kind ….because
I find it sort of scary that anyone of this caliber is allowed to write in a
publication that is supposed to be a nonfiction scientific publication. NO
WHERE and I mean NOWHERE in any other publication (just here in Fraterna, 16(2): page 1) have I
ever seen any reference that claimed that Hoya camphorifolia peduncles are deciduous. They certainly are not and my plant has about
a dozen perennial peduncles on it right now that makes a liar out of this
author. Warburg certainly did not
mention such a phenomenon in his name publication, which can be found in Perkins’ Fragmenta
Flora of the Philippines 1, page
129 (1904). As for Hoya chlorantha having a deciduous
peduncle. Yes, Rechinger
described it as having a deciduous peduncle and it’s
peduncles frequently fall after flowering.
I have noticed that sometimes a second blooming will occur on a peduncle
but they don’t
get longer and longer until they are an inch or more long the way some species’
peduncles do. I have no doubt, however,
that what I have is Hoya chlorantha. Rechinger’s publication was well illustrated
and what I see matches.
More on SRQ Hoyas
This
seller has demonstrated to me an eager willingness to correct her wrong
labeling and I believe that she will correct those I point out here, however, if you obtained hoyas from her earlier, you
may have misidentified plants. Please
compare your earlier purchases with the material reported on here. Thank you.
Speaking of Hoya chlorantha reminded me that I hadn’t visited this on line catalog in some time, so I went there for a brief visit. The hoya pictured by SRQ as Hoya chlorantha subsp. tutuilensis (SRQ3071) is not that species. If you haven’t seen the name publication of Hoya chlorantha varietas tutuilensis Rech., I can send you a copy of his publication of it, if you ask. Rechinger compared it with Hoya chlorantha varietas chlorantha, as “differs from the type of the species in its reddish flowers and shorter, oval lobes of the corona.” I assure you that these flowers look more reddish than purplish on a sunny day but my pictures were taken during a week of rain, or so George told me.
Above: Hoya chlorantha varietas tutuilensis Rech. The picture was taken by the late, George Slusser. He copyrighted it and willed all of his hoya pictures and their copyrights to me. You may use it but only if you credit George Slusser.
SRQ’s listing of Hoya coronaria provided a big belly laugh because the text said it should never be allowed to fry out!” I wonder, if it does “fry out” would it be saved if I sprinkle ketchup on it? I apologize for poking fun but I just couldn’t resist. There are just too few things that are still politically correct to laugh at anymore! I take my laughs wherever I find them!
Other SRQ listings that the smart shopper should be warned about:
1). She listed Hoya loyceandrewsiana. It is the same clone of the same species listed by her as Hoya latifolia (IML-88).
2). Hoya meredithii is a later published synonym for Hoya vitellinoides. Hoya vitellinoides is misspelled by SRQ.
3). Hoya odorata is not in our collections. The hoya so labeled is Hoya cembra.
4). The hoya pictured as Hoya plicata is NOT that species. It is a hoya that appears to have first been introduced into trade by Ted Green as “sp. #81036.” It was later sold by the Liddle’s as IML-557. The way it came to be misidentified as Hoya plicata was by Dale Kloppenburg’s strange reasoning. Several people had remarked on its resemblance to Hoyas revoluta and Hoya micrantha.
At the
time, Hoya Society International members Drs. Gerard J. Niemann, F. Warnaar, and
W. J. Baas were conducting
a study of Hoya sap. They
were working in the Botanical Laboratory,
Dr. Niemann’s studies could not identify a species except in cases where there was already a correctly identified plant for comparison but it could quickly tell if two plants that appeared identical were the same or different species. I sent him cuttings of the hoyas being sold then as Hoya revoluta, Hoya micrantha and the one I’d bought from Ted Green as #81036, as well as several others. Dale had thought TG’s #81036 was Hoya plicata, for what reason I was never able to figure out.
When the
study was done and the results came back, Dale immediately declared #81036 to
be Hoya
plicata. I told him I thought
him wrong but he insisted that the Dr. Niemann’s analysis proved it. I told him, “It did no such thing; all it did
was prove that 81036 wasn’t the same species as those other two species.” That’s Kloppenburg for you. He is all knowing and there is no point in
discussing anything with him because he just tells you that you are wrong and
then just shuts down! He is a very likeable and a very generous old codger but I
wish that people would stop humoring the man because he has been proven wrong
by all published Hoya plicata documents and by it’s
holotype. The longer this wrong label is
attached to it, the harder it’s going to be to correct it. And by the way, since TG’s 81036/IML-557 is
NOT Hoya
plicata, that makes, those bozos’ recently published name of Hoya
plicata subsp. rundumensis something else entirely, but what or how to
correct this stupid error, I don’t have a clue.
As one degreed, college professor taxonomist wrote, “Kloppenburg will
live to be 120 and it will take 200 years or more to straighten out the mess left
behind when he dies.” He’s only in his early 90s now so that leaves
him an estimated 18 years to put
finishing touches on what I call the “Hoya Community’s Garbage Landfill!”
Above left; Fully opened umbel of flowers on TG-81036/IML-557.
Above Right: An umbel of the same species before its flowers are fully opened.
I guarantee that this is NOT Hoya
plicata.
5). The one this source pictured as Hoya mindorensis (IML-768) is the same identical clone as the
one pictured as Hoya mindorensis superba. I don’t recognize that subspecies
name because I think
the author of it doesn’t know what’s what about much of anything. He published
pictures of a variety of flower parts in Fraterna, calling all of them Hoya mindorensis flower parts but they
actually belonged to several different species. That I can prove.
6). The hoya pictured
as Hoya
macgregorii is MOST DEFINITELY NOT Hoya macgregorii. Schlechter left us an excellent Holotype specimen,
with drawings of the flower parts attached.
The specimen has an umbel of flowers attached too. See it, below.
What Hoya is Hoya
macgregorii?
At this time,
I cannot say with 100% accuracy just which hoya it is but I can say with 100%
accuracy which hoya is isn’t. It isn’t
that very plain looking hoya that almost all the
Hoya
macgregorii Schltr. was published in the Philippine Journal of Science i. Suppl. Page 302 in
1906. Schlechter’s holotype specimen is
R. C. McGregor #191. McGregor found it
on the
In
correspondence, David Liddle told me that he thought that the hoya given to me
by Charles Marden Fitch, that I numbered CMF-8 was Hoya macgregorii. When I protested that the corona lobes were
wrong, he told me to dry some flowers and compare them with Schlechter’s
drawings and I might see what Schlechter saw.
I use to “preach” drying flowers and comparing the dried flowers with
holotype specimens but I got lazy and forgot.
I should have known better because the mantra quoted morning,
Whether my dried flowers will prove David was right or not, I can’t say now. As soon as my plant blooms again, I intend to make a specimen and dry it. Then we shall see. But, regardless of what CMF-8 turns out to be, the plant & flowers you have seen on line (and maybe purchased yourself), as Hoya macgregorii, is most definitely NOT Hoya macgregorii Schltr. Stay tuned, I’ll not take another cutting from my CMF-8 until it blooms again and I can dry its flowers. As soon as I get those flowers, I’ll report here and tell you if David was right. I suspect he was because I know that the foliage, the flowers and umbel size of CMF-8 match Hoya macgregorii. If it turns out that it’s flowers’ coronas, when dried, match those on Schlechter’s designated holotype, then we’ll know.
Ted Green’s
Hoyas… continued from last issue
Hoya pseudo-littoralis: This
should be written as Hoya pseudolittoralis. No hyphen, because “pseudo-“ is not a stand alone word,
but you can forget that name. The hoya
published as this is Hoya anulata.
Hoya pubera. Per the Latin scholars
among us, this name should be spelled “p-u-b-e-r.” The a, they say,
doesn’t belong there. I believe that
this is not Hoya puber because it doesn’t match Blume’s publication
Hoya pubicalyx. As far as I know, this is correct but if you are a female, you probably aren’t colour blind so, if you see that the flowers are just about a pure rose colour, with no hint of brown anywhere, don’t think you have the wrong plant. Just remember that Mr. Green is a male and that the medical journals say that all men are colour blind to some degree.
Hoya purpureofusca. This one should be hyphenated because
purpureo and fusca are two stand alone words.
One means, “the colour purple,” and the other means, “dark,” as in
“where Noah was when the lights went out” or the depth of any colour when the
optimum amount of pigment is present. The name should be written Hoya
purpureo-fusca.
Hoya retusa Vahl. Friends,
I have been preaching this to Mr. Green for at least 20 years. There is no such
species as Hoya retusa Vahl. I have checked the dates and learned
that Vahl had been hung for treason and buried deep in Mother Earth for 48
years before a fellow by the name of Dalzell, found and published this species
as Hoya
retusa Dalz. The only hoya name
that Vahl has ever been associated with is the name Hoya verticillata,* which, we have been told
is the correct name for Hoya acuta. Kloppenburg, Green and company have made a
mess of this complex by sinking numerous other species into synonymy; taking
them out again and then sinking them again.
I think that west coast and
Hawaiian crew assume that if they repeat something that is wrong long enough
that it will eventually become fact. I
say, It “ain’t agonna happen! AGAIN, I REPEAT: THE ONLY LEGITIMATE HOYA RETUSA IS: Hoya retusa Dalzell, which was
published in 1852. Warburg published another species from
*Actually Vahl was
never, while living associated with any Hoya name. He published the plant in question as Sperlingia
verticillata and someone else moved it to the hoya genus, long after
his physical and spiritual departure from planet earth.
A fellow I
know who accompanied Mr. Green on some of his hoya hunting trips quoted him as
saying (every time someone found a hoya, even if it were high in a tree 40 feet
above them), “That is Hoya soandso (giving a legitimate name); I’d recognize it
anywhere.” Then my friend said, “Kloppenburg
would pipe in with, ‘No, it is a new unpublished species and I’m going to
publish it’.” How anyone could even
distinguish anything that far off the ground from poison ivy or any of hundreds
of other things is a mystery to me. Ninety some odd year olds surely
can’t. Does one of them, I wonder, think
he is
Hoya revolubilis. I know of two different species making the rounds as this species and a third species has been pictured in publications as this species. There is what I am sure is a 4th species out there with this label. It is one featured in The Hoyan several years ago by Dr. Obchant Thaithong., which she said was a synonym for Hoya oreogena. I’m not 100% sure which of these 4 Mr. Green is selling but I am convinced that none of them are Hoya revolubilis.
I confess, I have not seen a holotype specimen of Hoya revolubilis, even though it is said to be in the Harvard collection. I have been there several times and didn’t see it. It must have been misfiled or out on loan every time I was there. I have seen and photographed the other specimen cited by the author as being this species. Mr. Green’s plant does not match it at all well, nor do any of the others that I have seen. It certainly is nothing like Hoya salweenica, as Mr. Green states. But, then, the hoya Mr. Green sold to several of my friends as Hoya salweenica is not that species either.
Here
is a picture of an average size and average shape leaf of the plant Mr. Green
sold to several of my friends mislabeled Hoya salweenica. He won’t sell to me
but the following is what I got when I paid a friend to buy one from Mr. Green
for me. It still had Mr. Green’s label
on it when I got it.
The following is a greatly reduced picture of T. T. Yü #23006. which Tsiang and P.T. Li cited as the Hoya salweenica Holotype specimen.
Those two don’t look one iota alike, do they? I think that the rather unorthodox wording of their type publication left a lot of us with the wrong impression. It was hoya # 8 in their monograph and it began with a lot of Chinese writing and inside the Chinese text, they wrote “(Hoya revolubilis Tsiang et P. T. Li)” This was followed by more Chinese.
If those who started calling Hoya revolubilis a synonym of Hoya salweenica had read further until they got to the Latin diagnosis, which validated the name Hoya salweenica they’d have learned that Tsiang and Li had only been comparing and contrasting the two species, both of which were found in the native habitats covered by their monograph. They did not say anywhere that they were the same species. No, I don’t read Chinese but I corresponded with P. T. Li and I was a good friend of Peter Tsang, who also spoke Chinese. These two gentlemen told me what the test of many Chinese publications said. What this said, in a nutshell, was that “Hoya salweenica differs from Hoya revolubilis in having leaf margins flat or only slightly revolute, bases rounded and leaves lightly and shortly pubescent beneath.”
The
type specimen has only two leaves on it (those two shown above). The light colour on the lower leaf makes me
suspect that Hoya salweenica may have a silvery “blush” over some of its
leaves. Note I said, “suspect,”
not “does.”
Hoya subquintuplinervis – The hoya
featured by Mr. Green as this species, is an almost perfect match to the Hoya
pottsii type specimen. It is NOT
Hoya
subquintuplinervis.
Hoya surigaoensis ..Mr.
Green says this is “EG-809. Mr.
Kloppenburg, who published the name (and everyone else)
says it is EG-897. One of the these numbers is obviously a typo. I strongly suspect that the name will be sunk
into something else before too long. I’m
not 100% sure, yet, what but it looks very like several other published
names. Note I don’t say, it looks like several other species. I didn’t because I suspect that the several
other names I refer to are all a single species. Study of these will take a lot of time and
effort.
What Hoya is
IML-518? IS it Hoya leucorhoda?
My Opinion? – Ain’t
Hoya
sp. IML-518
I am 100% sure it is not Hoya leucorhoda. David Liddle’s labeling was more accurate than any of the other hoya sellers I’ve bought from or traded with but I also know that all of us are subject to human error. David’s most recent copy of his Accession Catalog, sent to me shortly before his death, listed IML-518 as Hoya schneei. I am 100% sure it is not Hoya schneei either. It’s a pity that David didn’t record his source. I am convinced that IML-518 is Hoya trukensis. I recall exactly when this species first appeared on the scene. It precipitated the first serious disagreement I had with Kloppenburg over hoya identification.
Kloppenburg
hitched a free ride on a military aircraft at tax payers’ expense because he
was a retired naval
officer. They used to be able to go free
to anywhere we had bases. I think he
wanted to go to Ponape but they dropped him off on one of the
Hosokawa did not picture the flowers of Hoya trukensis, but his description of them matches IML-518 to a T. He did picture the foliage and cite measurements, which also match the foliage of IML-518 and the hoya Kloppenburg found on one of the islands of Truk, exactly.
You can find Hosokawa’s publication of Hoya trukensis in The Japanese Journal of Botany, Vol. 13, page 282 (1937). Look to the bottom, right side of the following illustration and you’ll see one very mature leaf that I took off of my IML-518. In five years, none have grown any larger. It is exactly the size and shape of those described by Hosokawa. The illustration is a picture of half of Schlechter’s holotype specimen of Hoya leucorhoda. I halved it to make it fit on my scanner. Note the size of its leaves, which are many times larger than those of IML-518. Also note the diameter of the stalks and stems that are likewise much larger than those of IML-518.
Schlechter’s illustration tells me that Hoya leucorhoda flowers are shallowly campanulate (but might flattened with age, don’t know because I haven’t seen a true Hoya leucorhoda), while those of IML-518 are more horizontal; the margins of the corolla lobes not rolled under, as in Schlechter’s illustration; and their corona lobes are broader in the middle than those in Schlechter’s illustration.
Hoya
leucorhoda was the only hoya that Schlechter “waxed poetically” (as my
kids used to say) over, saying it should be introduced into European gardens.. He didn’t say that about any other hoya that he described
and named. He also described the flower as having pure white corollas with
purplish-red coronas. IML-518 has white corollas but the
coronas are pink, with dots of red in the center.
Above: Half of the Hoya leucorhoda Schltr.
Holotype specimen. The small green leaf
at the right is the largest leaf I could find on three different plants of
IML-518 that I have obtained over the past 5 years. I am quite confident that it is not Hoya
leucorhoda.
So, why do I
know that IML-518 isn’t Hoya schneei? Elementary, my dear Watson. Because it doesn’t fit
Schlechter’s holotype specimen either, nor his description and certainly not
his illustration. I have
photomicrographic pictures of the reconstituted flowers of an Isotype specimen of Hosokawa’s
8433. I advise anyone comparing them to
dry and press their flowers before making comparisons. One needs to compare like material.
Above: Hosokawa -#8433
Now, how about the following? What does it look like to you?
Yeah!
It’s a branch of IML-518. It
looks like Hoya trukensis to me too.
I believe you can make book on it being Hoya trukensis.
About
Fraterna
and Hoya
leucorhoda Schltr.: There is one thing I believe they got
right. In Vol. 11, #1, on page 13, there
is a picture taken by Ted Green. I
believe the plant in that picture is Hoya leucorhoda. On page 14 of the same issue, there is a
picture taken by Chuck Everson. I am
sure that the plant in that picture is NOT Hoya leucorhoda. What’s strange is that in
correspondence, David Liddle wrote the exact same opinion. That’s why I was so surprised to see that
IML-518 was what it turned out to be.
I Love eBay…
But……
Recently, I had a hoya on eBay and the high bidder was someone who bid as Markawe. He was sent several invoices but after 6 days when he had not paid, I sent another invoice. He replied, “I can’t see paying for shipping for one plant. Have you an interesting hoya that you might sell?” I replied that it was against eBay policy for a buyers or sellers, using eBay mail to arrange private sales so, no I had nothing to sell him and requested immediate payment. He didn’t pay so I sent him an e-mail message and told him, “If you want the plant, pay now. If you don’t pay now, I’ll have to start charging you for plant sitting it at the rate of $5 per week. Otherwise, I will sell it to one of my walk-in customers or place it on eBay again. The choice is yours!”
The reply I got from him was, “Keep your fucking plant you nasty bitch!!!!! I’m not giving you a choice, twat!”
Would you believe that eBay will not allow me to give that man a negative feedback? I tried and tried. It doesn’t seem right that a buyer can give a negative feedback to a seller but the seller can’t give a buyer a negative one. Earlier someone gave me a negative feedback and eBay never contacted me to tell me of my customer’s complaint and never give me an opportunity explain what happened, I think eBay’s “Feedback” system is just a sham, put there to make buyers and sellers, alike, think that eBay is looking after their best interest, when it is just ignoring them. It seems to me that whatever advantage eBay gives, it is to the buyers. It should know that without sellers there would be no buyers!
As
for Markawe, I hope someone will show this
to his mother and I hope that she is a good, God-Fearing Southern lady because,
if she is, no matter how old that lad is, he’ll be in for having his nasty
mouth washed out with a stiff brush and a bar of old fashion lye soap! He might even be taken on a trip behind the
smokehouse and have his bare fanny whipped with a young peach tree branch…
Those slender peach tree branches sting like the dickens!
Plant People
are the Best People in the World…. Right?
I’d
say, “Yes and no! Some of the best
people I have ever known are
or were plant people. I
credit the late Edwin Rundlet of
On the flip side, the people I consider to be the very worst examples of humanity, even worse that those Congressmen who have hijacked our county and given it away, are plant people… well not entirely… let’s just call them “Pseudo-Hoya-People.”
I
could tell you a hundred true accounts of very underhanded and despicable things I’ve observed
since I became involved with hoyas. The
worse one is what one lady from
Before
the meeting this lady(?) traveled with a group of her
friends to a site in the next state where a volcano had erupted. They wanted to cart home volcano ash which
they’d heard was the new miracle soil for growing hoyas. They passed through this gentleman’s town and
decided to stop and see his hoyas. They
found another man living in the same house and jumped at the wrong conclusion. The man was a fellow George happened upon,
hanging from a tree in George’s orchids.
It was a man who was attempting to end his life after his wife of many
years left him. George saved the man’s
life; took him
in and helped him mend his shaky relationship with his wife. Eventually that man and his wife moved to
A
few days after that
This fellow asked a couple of his friends if they knew what the reason was. I was one of the people he asked. I wrote to that lady(?) and asked her. She replied promptly by saying, “We don’t want no queers at our meetings.” I did not pass that letter on to that sweet old man but either the other friend passed her reply on to him or another friend I showed my letter from her told him. He confronted me later and told me that he knew what she said. He did not confirm if he was homosexual or not. I never asked and I never cared. Friendship is not about sex. It is about caring and sharing. Homosexuality isn’t catching either.
What I find truly deplorable is that a person of this caliber has had a hoya named for her. I am confident, however that the name will be sunk as it is not recognized by very many people.
I’ve
told this account for one reason only. I
want that
eBay SELLER,
sgabird
Have you seen this seller’s gorgeous picture of the Hoya globulosa he sells on eBay? So far each time I’ve seen him list one, it has been for a 4” pot of it. I bought one of them a couple of years ago. What I got was a large correctly labeled, very healthy plant. I’d say the healthiest plant I ever got in the mail.
From the time I first heard of Hoya globulosa, I had always been told that “it will not bloom in any but the coolest climates. Until yesterday I’d only known one person whose Hoya globulosa had ever bloomed for them and that person lived in the far north where summers are relatively cool and winters are freezing..
When I saw that gorgeous picture on eBay yesterday, I contacted sgabird and asked him if it had actually bloomed for him or if he’d used a picture supplied by a friend. I grew up only a few miles directly west of where sgabird lives and grows his hoyas. I have relatives that I frequently visit in his town. I know that, in summer, the heat is estimated at only a few degrees cooler than in Hades and the humidity is stifling.
Bruce
told me that it was his own picture, taken when his own Hoya globulosa bloomed at
his home in
If
you check Ted Green’s Hoya catalog, you’ll see that he says it doesn’t bloom
for him yet
Coming
up next time… Just which hoya is Hoya oreogena Kerr…. It definitely is not IML-1513