PS-The Hoyan
Vol. 8, #1
April, 2009
The above isn’t a hoya, as anyone can see. I put it here to explain why I’ve been so
slow at attending to other things. The
picture is what I see when I look out my office window in the spring. The close up pink bush is an old time
favorite Azalea, ‘Coral Bells.’ The
lighter pink one in the background is another of my favorites, ‘Sweetheart
Supreme.’ I sit and admire the view and nothing else gets done until the last
flower fades.
From here on, the subject is HOYA!
This is not the best
picture in the world. It is a picture of
the first flowers I had on IPPS-8845 when my plant was only 2 or 3 months old. I have had a lot of questions asked about
this one lately so I thought it time I wrote something on the subject.
Question: I was told
that species IPPS-8845 (aka GPS-8845) is actually Hoya tomataensis. Do you agree with that identity? – too many
of my critics to count.
Reply: I do NOT
agree. I have IML-1632, which David Liddle sells as Hoya tomataensis (I
assume this identity correct and will until/if it ever blooms and proves it to
be something else. My start is less than a year old and hasn’t put on much
growth yet. I also have an older plant labeled Hoya tomataensis that was
given to me (no IML#) a year before I got the IML-1632. It hasn’t put on much
growth either. Neither has bloomed yet but I see enough differences between the
two Hoya tomataensis plants and
IPPS-8845 (aka GPS-8845) to convince me that they are not the same species. I have bloomed IPPS-8845 and have many
pictures of its various flower parts. I
also have a copy of DK’s name publication of Hoya tomataensis. Actually, the only trait I see that
both have in common is that both have clear sap.
Differences
that I see in the plants:
1). IPPS-8845 is a fast grower
and a prolific bloomer. IML-1632 has, so
far, shown little tendency to do anything but sit there.
The above picture is of a cutting I took from my
“mother” plant of IPPS-8845 in October of 2008.
The rest of the cutting is out of camera range. It has only the four leaves seen here but the
almost bare branches extend in all directions with embryonic leaves here &
there. This cutting is growing in a 2X3”
nursery flat pot. It has never bloomed
but, as you can see, it is about to bloom.
I counted 9 peduncles, some nearly as long as the leaves.
2).
The leaves of IML-1632 are as flat as pancakes. DK’s name publication of Hoya tomataensis
described the leaves as flat. The leaves
of IPPS-8845 are, for the most part, convex above and concave below.
3). The costa of IML-1632 is raised above,
invisible below and the other veins are from very faint to completely invisible
above and completely invisible below, on both of my two plants and in Green
& Kloppenburg’s pictures that accompanied their name publication. The costa of IPPS-8845 is depressed above,
raised below and quiet conspicuous on the upper surface and clearly visible on
the lower surface, as are the tertiary veins and the network of veins between
those veins.
4). The petiole of IML-1632 is, as DK described
the petiole* of Hoya tomataensis. He said it was “ curved, relatively long,
terete and not grooved above.” The petioles of IPPS-8845 are not terete. Some
are curved but most of those on my plant are straight. They are rounded
on the sides and bottom but they are flat above except for about 2 mm.
at leaf base. That 2 mm. appears to be the beginning a “channel” that was never
finished. They appear as if they may have started out terete but someone took a
narrow slice off the upper surface. They are completely glabrous and they lack
those rough rings seen on the petioles of
IML-1632.
* Kloppenburg’s petiole description is in the
third paragraph, (third line up from the bottom) of the publication. Here, DK said, “The peduncles are curved, relatively long, terete and not grooved
above, 2.5 cm. in length and 0.36 cm. in diameter.” I have never seen nor heard of a peduncle
that is grooved above and since most peduncles hang down; stand straight up; or slant outward; there isn’t an “above” that could be grooved. I think it safe to say that the part
described in that sentence is the petiole, not the peduncle. Further evidence
of this follows in the fourth paragraph, where he gave a more plausible description
of a peduncle.
5).
In the next paragraph, Kloppenburg
described the peduncle of Hoya tomataensis as “essentially
glabrous except for an occasional hair cell, about 1.5 cm. long.” The peduncles of IPPS-8845 are glabrous but I
detect no hair cells. What I do detect,
which is not common, though not truly rare, on hoya peduncles, are adventitious
rootlets. Most of those on the rooted cutting pictured above, have from 3 to 5
adventitious roots. As for the length of the peduncles, most of them are about 6
to 11 cm. long and extremely slender. The
peduncles on my IPPS-8845 plants are exactly as those in the Kleijn & van
Donkelaar illustration. On the other
hand, the peduncles in the picture on page 5 of the Fraterna publication
appears to be almost the same diameter as the petiole on the leaf adjacent to it and not even as long.
6).
Mr. Kloppenburg then described the pedicels of Hoya tomataensis as
being 6.7 cm. long. The pedicels of IPPS-8845 are only about 1.5 to, at most, 2
cm. long. I suspect that he was again thinking peduncle but typed pedicel.
Left: IML-1642
(Hoya tomataensis?). The nerves are, as Kloppenburg described them, “obscure.”
It has been growing in full sun for almost 6 months and still looks the same.
Right:
IPPS-8845. The nerves are extremely
conspicuous. I have another plant of it growing in the shade. Its veins are also quite conspicuous.
How could anyone confuse the ugly thing on the left
with the lovely thing on the right?
7. The
seventh difference that I see, may (or may not), eventually, prove to be no difference at all. I have small plants of both these species
sitting side by side in a sunny location.
The leaves of IML-1632 (so far) have remained light green in colour,
with only the raised costa still paler green (almost white). The leaves of IPPS-8845 are a lovely shade of
brown, but the costa and all of the veins and reticulations are light green.
8). The leaves of IML-1632 are thick and extremely stiff and waxy but
with a dull surface.. Those of IPPS-8845
are thin for hoya leaves.
A very
important differences that I see in the flowers of IPPS-8845 and Hoya tomataensis:
9). Here, I must assume that the illustrations
published by DK in Fraterna 17:2 are
correctly labeled (many of his pictures have not been correctly labeled in the
past but with digital photography, he shouldn’t have much trouble getting his
labels right).
The
difference I see there is in the pollinarium.
DK has written, many times, in his various publications that one should
be able to identify a hoya by its pollinarium alone. In this, he was echoing R. Rintz, who made
the same claim. I do not believe that
but I do believe that if two plants are the same species then their pollinaria
will match. The pollinaria of IPPS-8845
and that of Hoya tomataensis, do not match, unless DK’s pictures on page 4
of the above cited publication are mislabeled, as many of Mr. Kloppenburg’s
pictures are.
Left: Kleijn & van Donkelaar’s illustration of
an IPPS-8845’s pollinarium. Note the
long, very shallow, upturned translator arms (called wings by some) and the
long curved tails attaché to the caudicle bulbs).
Right: This is my photo of an IPPS-8845
pollinarium. It also has long, shallow,
upturned translator arms and the caudicle bulbs are long tailed. All other
flower parts also match those in the Kleijn & van Donkelaar illustration.
Above
is DK’s Hoya tomataensis pollinarium picture: Note that the translator arms are short and
cut straight across (not in the slightest bit upturned). Plus that, the
part that gives the caudicle its name (the tail) is so short it appears
to be missing. Actually, this
pollinarium greatly resembles the pollinarium illustration, labeled as
belonging to Hoya dolichosparte on page 472 of the Kleijn & van
Donkelaar publication.
10). I thought I was through with this but in
proofing it, it hit me that the flower colour of IPPS-8845
is not the same as that of the Hoya
tomataensis illustrated in Fraterna.
The flowers in Fraterna rose-pink with the coronas the same shade or
slightly lighter, while those of IPPS-8845
are pale pink with deep rose-pink coronas. If the plant featured in Fraterna is the holotype #19096, there is the proof that it is not
IPPS-8845. Certainly, it is possible for a single species to come in different
colours and for a single clone to produce different coloured corollas at
different bloom periods, but when the latter happens, the colour of the corona
does not change.*
*
The only case I know of where the colour of the corona appears to change at
different bloomings is Hoya kerrii and that is not a true
change. The colour of a Hoya
kerrii comes from the dark
coloured sap inside its transparent corona lobes. Heavy watering causes the sap to be thin and
extremely high temperatures causes it to “boil” over and spill out, leaving the
corona several shades lighter in colour than when it blooms under cooler and
drier conditions.
Left: Hoya
tomataensis. Right: IPPS-8845
The IPPS-8845 came to me via a joint order from Paul
Shirley in the
Note:
Torill Nyhuus wrote and article in Hoyatelegrafen #3 2007 and showed pictures of the same two
clones pictured above. She accounted for
the difference in flower colour to be due to camera and light conditions. That could be true of the corolla colour but
not the corona colour. I doubt seriously
that the same differences would occur when someone (me) took pictures of the
same plants at different times, several thousand miles away. In the five years
I have had IPPS-8845, the flowers have had the same shade of the same colour
each time it has bloomed. I must also
add that Ms. Nyhuus wrote as if these
were two clones, the one with the lighter coloured corollas being IPPS-8845 and
the other being the Hoya tomataensis holotype.
Ms. Nyhuus wrote: “I’ve talked to David Liddle, Dale Kloppenburg, Paul
Shirley and Ted Green about these plants, etc.”
She did not say that she asked if IPPS-8845 was the same species as
Ted Green’s type, but the implication was that she had, as she added, “If Ted’s
type plant (the one he has taken material from to the type herbaria) is the
same clone as one of the others mentioned, couldn’t be confirmed.” Carin
Wahlström translated the Hoyatelegrafen text for me.
I
am (more than Kloppenburg and Liddle; less that Paul Forster) something of a
lumper, but I cannot agree that two
plants with this many differences could be a single species and certainly not a
single clone of a single species. So, again, I say, “ain’t no way, no time, no
how that IPPS-8845 could be Hoya tomataensis.
Another subject (sort of):
DK’s
error in calling the petiole, “the peduncle” reminds me of what I perceive as
the same error made by another author back in 1861. I refer to Seemann’s publication of Hoya
diptera in Flora Vitiensis. Seemann
described the “peduncles” as “subalate.”
Since then just about every author who has written about this species
have pointed out that the peduncles on his type specimen are not subalate. None have offered an explanation as to what
Seemann may have meant. I believe that
Seemann made the same mistake that DK made in his description of Hoya
tomataensis. It appears to me to
be a mistake that just about everyone (including me) makes, sooner or
later. We think, petiole and say
peduncle.* I have seen Seemann’s type
and I have examined its peduncles and its petioles. Like all others before me, I found the
peduncles to be terete. I found that the
petioles were channeled above, quite deeply.
The sides of the channels were unusually thin. When the specimen was pressed and dried,
these sides, being so thin, spread outward.
In cross section they look like tiny wings. This leads me to believe that Seemann meant
to say, “petioles subalate.”
* I spent most of my youth in trouble because
my mother was forever mixing the names of my siblings and me. She’d call out from the kitchen, “Celetta,
come here, immediately.” I’d hear her
repeat it several times and never responded because, “I’m not Celetta.” Celetta is my sister. Or she’d demand that Bobby (my brother) do
something and then lower the boom on me when I didn’t do whatever it was that
she shouted at Bobby to do. Sometimes, she’d even call me by her sisters’
names. When I had children, I sometimes
caught myself making the same mistakes.
When I take the time to proof my own writing, I frequently catch entries
where I intended to write the name of one flower part but, instead wrote
another part. Such errors become part of the record when one proofs one’s own
writing; when one doesn’t proof at all or when a person without knowledge of
the subject does the proofing. I find it best to let what I write sit for a few
weeks before I proof and publish it.
That way, the mistakes are more noticeable to me.
I
am sure that there will still be some who disagree with me. I know that David Liddle does. He and others may be right and I may have to
“eat crow” somewhere down the line (I’m developing a taste for it)! I don’t think that will happen because I
can’t believe that I could possibly observe so many difference between two
plants of a single species. David says that IPPS-8845 is the holotype species
of Hoya
tomataensis, however, in Green and Kloppenburg’s publication of the
name, not a single reference was made to IPPS-8845. Kleijn & van Donkelaar published their
paper which featured this species, and it well illustrated 3 years before the
Green & Kloppenburg publication. If it were IPPS-8845, one would think
they’d have said so. Instead, they cited
“19086 (BISH) ex hort. but did not say whose 19086 it is.
References:
Kleijn
David & van Donkelaar, Ruurd, Notes on the Taxonomy and Ecology of the Genus
Hoyan in Central Sulawesi in Blumea 46 (2001) 457-483.
Green,
Ted & Kloppenburg, R. D., in Fraterna17(2): 1-5 & Cover
Nyhuus,
Torill, in Hoyatelegrafen 7(3):14 (2007.