PS-TheHoyan

Vol.  8, #6

December, 2009

 

 

Hoya myrmecopa Kleijn et van Donkelaar

 

Hoya myrmecopa was published by the above authors in Blumea, 46: 477, 478 & 479 (2001).

 

The name, myrmecopa, means “Ant Hole.” It was given that name because it was found growing in holes in tree trunks and branches.  These holes were also occupied by ants. It is native to Sulawesi, near a place named Tentena.  You may have bought this one as   IPPS-8840, GPS-8840,  Hoya sp. Sulawesi,” or the untenable name of Hoya sulawesii .  It is one of several different species that are circulating  so labeled.  The correct name is Hoya myrmecopa Kleijn et van Donkelaar.

This species  is one of the  very easiest to grow and  it blooms when very young.  It greatly resembles Hoya brevialata  but is easily distinguished from it, even when not in bloom, by it’s leaves, which are much  larger. I’ve had this species for only a year and it is already one of my favorites.

The authors said that it was found on a limestone ridge forming the northwestern shore of Lake Posa, Sulawesi Province, Indonesia.  If you stopped reading at that point, you might assume, as others have, that you need to add lime to your planting medium.  That simply is not true.  It was the tree this epiphyte was growing in that had its roots in the limestone.  The hoya was found growing in a hole in the tree trunk. It had no contact with the ground. As its name implies, the hole in that tree was also the home of a large colony of ants.  Ant waste, which fertilized the hoya, contains an abundance of formic acid. I have found that this (and almost all of my hoyas) thrive, growing in a medium that tests at from  pH-5 to pH-6, which is slightly acid. 

This species is available in several different colours.  I don’t know where one can obtain any but the one pictured here.  It is IML-1375. I suspect that anyone who got it from the Liddle Nursery, even recently, will have it in abundance, as it is a very fast grower.

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Another Visit to Hoya chuniana P.T. Li,  et al.

 

I used to have a hoya that I believe was this species.  I got the plant from Loyce Andrews in 1978 and lost it in the 1983 freeze.  I was able to replace it when my friend, Cathie Perpich, bought Loyce Andrews’ entire Hoya stock. I gave it away in 1997, when I was too ill to care for my plants.  This time, I haven’t been able to replace it.

 It was labeled PNG-6.  I believe that my PNG-6 was Hoya chuniana.  David Liddle was just as sure that PNG-6  was not Hoya chuniana.  I finally gave in and bought IML-380 which David said, in his catalog, is PNG-6.  I got it on the 28th of August this year (2009).  It is a gorgeous plant but it is NOT the same species as the one sold to me by Loyce Andrews as PNG-6.  Actually the leaves of IML-380 are much prettier than those of Loyce Andrews’ PNG-6.

As I have said many times before, buying from, selling to, and trading hoyas with others is sort of like playing that old childhood game of “Gossip.”  You remember it, I’m sure.  You and your friends line up in a row. The first person whispers something into the ear of the second, who repeats to the third person what the first person said to him, etc.  Each person has the message whispered to him or her and, in turn, whispers the same to the following person or is supposed to whisper the same message.  By the time each person has heard the whispered message and the last person reveals what he or she heard, the message has become extremely warped.  In the last gossip game I recall playing, the first person quoted the last line of a parody our preacher’s father taught us kids at vacation Bible School (an attempt to show us that being good didn’t mean being dull).  It starts out so:  “All I want is a bowl of butter beans.” (to the tune of  “A Closer Walk with Thee). Each person  repeated the same, in his own words (though it is suspected that  some smart aleck boy deliberately passed on something he did not hear) but each person changed one or more words.  When the last person was asked what the message was, she answered, “I don’t want no blooming turnip greens!” (Send me an e-mail if you’d like a copy of all the words to that parody).

Like that children’s game, just about every time a hoya passes from one person to another, it seems to me that its name is changed. Each person that gets it appears to have changed at least one letter of the name. It’s amazing what that name has become after cuttings have changed hands a dozen times.  Identifying new finds from the jungle is hard enough.  Straightening out the mess caused by each of us having the same species with a different label or a different species with the same label, is maddening!

Back in the early days of H.S.I. there were many who didn’t know which hoya was Hoya lacunosa.  I sold one to a lady in Florida and she sold cuttings of it in the Florida Market Bulletin, labeled Hoya lacinis.  A fellow out in St. Louis, MO, wrote to me and said that he’d bought a plant from a local side walk sale and it was labeled Hoya lucinda. 

Poor hearing, combined with a speech impediment and illiteracy also causes names to become muddled.  I had a relative who was born in my grandmother’s generation.  She was illiterate, as so many women were back then and she also was “hard of hearing.”  She named her son “Joe Sire.”  She didn’t mean too but that’s the way she pronounced his name and not being able to read what the mid-wife wrote on the birth certificate, that’s the way it was registered.  When someone inquired about “Jose Sire” she’d reply, “His name’s not Joe Sire; it’s Joe Sire.”  You’d say to her, “That’s what I said, Joe Sire.”  Again she’d repeat, “His name’s not Joe Sire; it’s Joe Sire.”  One day another cousin of her’s (the one who’d gone to Annapolis and become a Commander in the Navy) wanted desperately to  get in touch with Joe Sire, so he put his thinking cap on and tried out every name he could think of that started with a J.  He finally hit on Josiah.  When he did, the near deaf old lady broke out a huge toothless smile and said, “Finally, you got it right; it’s Joe Sire.”  I suspect that some of the funny names I’ve heard some hoyas called are also due to, poor hearing, illiteracy and a speech impediment.

 

BACK TO PNG-6 and Hoya chuniana P. T. Li syn. Hoya reticulata Schltr.)

 

 

Hoya chuniana P. T. Li  (Syn. Hoya reticulata  Schltr.) – Holotype specimen.

 

NOTE: I made a Xerox copy of the specimen.  Then I cut the leaves, the umbel and Schlechter’s sketches of the flower parts and arranged them so that all would fit on an 8.50” X 11” sheet of paper, which is just about all my scanner will scan.

The reason the specimen has the name Hoya reticulata on it, though the correct name is Hoya chuniana, is because Professor P. T. Li  realized that the name reticulata for this plant was untenable, due to at least three other species* having been published as Hoya reticulata before Schlechter published this one.  Professor Li gave it a new name, which he published in The Bulletin of Botanical Research 4(1):121 (Jan. 1984).

Every leaf on the hoya I got from Loyce Andrews labeled PNG-6 looked exactly like those on the above specimen.  Its flowers matched those in the sketches too.

 

*   For the curious: The three others who published hoyas named reticulata are Moon in 1824, Merrill in 1912 and Costantin in 1912.  I have not seen either Moon’s or Costantin’s types but both are thought by most to be Hoya multiflora. I have seen Merrill’s type.  I believe that it is Hoya incrassata or something very near it.

 

 

The  picture (above) is of a typical leaf of IML-380., which is listed in David Liddle’s 2009 catalog as PNG-6. This isn’t at all like the PNG-6 I got from Loyce Andrews in 1978, nor is it like the Hoya chuniana type.  Loyce said that Ted Green was her source, so I assume that this doesn’t match Ted’s  PNG-6,  however, I could be wrong about that. One can never be sure with his labeling.  I say that because Ted described his PNG-6 as “looking  a lot like Hoya australis.”

This is about the same size as all of the leaves on the cutting I got from David Liddle on 28 August 2009. It measures about  10 cm. long by 6 cm. wide. I have no idea why David thought this was PNG-6. In his Accession Catalog, he said that its source was “R. Robinson” and that when he got it, it was labeled Hoya cinnamomifolia.

I don’t know what this one is but I am sure it is neither PNG-6 (at least not the one I grew so labeled for many years) nor Hoya chuniana. I hope it blooms very soon so I can (maybe) learn what it is.  The largest leaf on it makes me suspect that it may be Hoya marginata.  Only the flowers will tell.

Let me tell you, folks.  If you aren’t confused by now, you haven’t been paying attention.

 

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Another Look at Hoya hellwigiana Warb.

 

            Which hoya is it?  The one I got so labeled (IML-1101) is not it, in my opinion. Warburg’s holotype appears to have been destroyed in WW-2 bombing raids. In the Liddle’s 2005 catalog, and those prior to that, IML-1101 was listed as Hoya chuniana.  From 2006 on, it has been listed as Hoya hellwigiana.  I don’t believe it is either.

The name, Hoya chuniana,  was not listed in the Liddle catalogs again until 2008.  In that catalog it was listed as “IML-1134 aff. chuniana.” In 2009, IML-1134  was again listed as “aff. chuniana.”

 It appears to me that IML-1134 is a lot more like Hoya hellwigiana than IML-1101 is, but I’m not prepared to say what either of them is, so, to help you decide what to call it, I’ll share with you what I know about these species.

 

Stems and branches

 

Hoya chuniana:  terete, glabrous

Leaves

 

Hoya chuniana: glabrous on both surfaces,  elliptic,  apexes narrowed to a point but the point itself is obtuse, fleshy-leathery,  with very conspicuous reticulate veins  on both upper and lower surfaces; 6.5 to 10 cm. long; 3 to 5 cm wide 9,  measured in the middle.

 

IML-1101: Leaves variable but mostly broadly ovate; apexes acute; bases cordate  Leaf veins very conspicuous.

 

Hoya hellwigiana:  cuneate-lanceolate or oblong,  9 to 15 cm. long (no width measurement cited); apex and base acute; veins  about 2, ascending on each side of costa, almost entirely inconspicuous.

            This is the most “telling” of all traits.  So far, all plants I’ve seen labeled (or, rather,  mislabeled) as this species have extremely conspicuous leaf veins.

 

IML-1134:  The leaves of this one are shaped exactly as Warburg described Hoya hellwigiana leaves (“cuneate-lanceolate; apex and base acute; veins 2 ascending on each side of costa).  I’d not call the veining “almost entirely inconspicuous” but the veining is a lot less conspicuous than most of the other trinerved species.

 

Petioles

 

Hoya chuniana: Short (2 to 6 mm.), Lightly sulcate.

 

Hoya hellwigiana:  10 to 12 mm. long, 3 mm. thick.  Warburg did not say if the petioles are sulcate or not.

 

IML-1101:  I don’t really know.  I have only a 1 node cutting of it, given to me by George Slusser, just before he died.  It immediately put up a stiff, straight peduncle, which I thought was a new branch (until it bloomed).  In the 2 years that I’ve had it, it hasn’t grown any more but that one peduncle has bloomed 3 times.  The petioles of its two leaves are buried beneath the soil so I can’t see if they are sulcate, flat, or terete.  I’ll watch and report on it, if it ever shows me the courtesy of another node of growth.  Maybe one of my readers (if I have any) could tell me.

 

IML-1134:  They appear to be terete to me.

 

          Inflorescence

 

Hoya chuniana: 20 to 30 flowers; peduncles (@ 2.5 cm. long) & pedicels (@ 2 cm. long); sepals ovate, very obtuse (@ 1.5 cm. long; corolla rotate (@  1.4 cm. in diameter), 5-parted up to the middle, lobes rhomboid-ovate, somewhat obtuse, outside glabrous, inside densely, microscopically papillose; corona lobes horizontal, above rhomboid-ovate, inner apex apiculate, outer apex somewhat acute.  Note:  Number of flowers per umbel varies greatly in almost all hoya species.  First blooming often exhibits only a single flower or only two or three flowers.  Older plants of the same species may have 30 or 40 flowers.

 

Hoya hellwigiana: peduncles @ 5.5 cm. long 1 mm. thick, glabrous; pedicels 1 cm. long  & 0.25 mm. thick, glabrous; sepals 1 to 1. 5 mm. long, ovate, obtuse, glabrous; corolla @ 4 mm. in diameter, glabrous, lobes broadly triangular; corona lobes spreading, almost flat, broadly ovate, outer apex obtuse, inner apex just touching anthers. Anther appendage oblong, obtuse.

 

Note:  I have observed that peduncles on most hoya species are very variable in length, even those on the same plant.

Pollinaria

 

Hoya chuniana   obliquely oblong; translators very short, retinaculum, very small, rhomboid.

 

Other

 

 Hoya chuniana: Schlechter did not mention  an ovate concave area on top of the corona lobe, extending from the outer tip to the center of the lobe, nor did he mention an umbo just above that concave area, but he drew them in the illustration he attached to the specimen.  He did not mention ligules inside the calyx.  His illustration shows ligules. He also did not mention that the corona sits on a short “stem, “ not directly on the corolla. This can be seen in his drawing.

Suggestion

 

I suggest that until proof of identity is found that you forget about names and label these  species with their IML numbers. That’s what I am doing.

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Fraterna 22, #3

 

I haven’t seen volume 22, #2. I can’t comment on it until I do.

 

My thoughts on reading volume 22, #3  are that it is just more of the same old, same old.  It’s a pity that the IHA members don’t call a meeting and put a muzzle on the editor --- or better yet, fire her.  So, no one else wants the job?  With the waste in space and stupidness exhibited in the choice of the most expensive paper money can buy, they could pay someone with half a brain to take the job.  Salary could be easily met by narrowing the excessive margins and using a different grade of paper.  Heck, even I would take it if they’d pay me to do it.  I guarantee you, that if I were the editor, there’d be a lot fewer DK new name publications.  Those I’d accept for publication would be less wordy and the words used would be spelled correctly.  There’d also be no pictures that are not recognizable as hoyas.  And, there’d be room for criticism, even that written by non-members (and about me).

 

My comments on the  “Cover Story.” (See page 4) 

 

Error 1:  Calling this a “story” makes me think the editor maybe made it up.  Is it fact or fiction?   Well, I’d say a bit of both.  The page, was signed by Ann Wayman, as author, though further up the column on the right it says “Published by Dr. R. Schlechter in: 1913 Botanische Jahrbücher 50:127.” I’m sure the author (Ms. Wayman) hadn’t been born in 1913 so Schlechter couldn’t have published what she wrote.  To confuse matters further, in the opening sentence she said this was from “Schlechter’s Hoya Species (1993) 102 103. R. D. Kloppenburg.”  Only someone who has been reading hoya publications for at least 20 years would be aware that she was referring to what R. D. Kloppenburg calls his “translation” of R. Schlechter’s 1913 publication.  Nor would they be aware that it was co-translated by Dieter Paul,  Dr. Roy Wyatt and Christine Burton. All parts of the Latin translation that were correct were copied from Burton’s previous translation and all the German parts that were correct were copied from Dr. Wyatt’s translation. 

Dieter Paul, who translated the German parts in DK’s translation,  was a wine steward in a fancy California restaurant.  His wife, Lina, volunteered him to translate the German part of the same publication for me several years earlier.  I sent him a copy of the original text and he sent it back, saying, “I cannot translate this because it is written in an archaic form of German that is no longer spoken.”  It was no such thing.  It merely had some botanical words that Dieter had never heard.  I checked Schlechter’s writing very carefully.  I found every word in it in my German-English Dictionary.  Meantime, I met Roy Wyatt, a professor of German at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech).  At the time, Roy was also president of the Garden Writer’s Association of America and the author of a Dictionary of German Botanical Terms.  Roy translated Schlechter’s  German text for me.  Later on Kloppenburg decided to do his version of the same publication and got Dieter Paul (who couldn’t read what he thought was an archaic form of German) to translate the German for him.  He proved in his translation that he really couldn’t translate it correctly but, even so, shouldn’t he be named  (and blamed) as co-author of this “story?” Wayman’s habit of claiming other’s work as her own is (if there is any justice) going to land her in a heap of trouble one of these days.  I know it’s unchristian of me but I hope I live to see it!  Am I bitter?  Hell, yes, I’m bitter.  You’d be too if you were me!

Error 2:  3rd line of Text. Translating “suffrutex” as “half a shrub.”  The correct English language word for “suffrutex” is “subshrub.”  The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany defines “subshrub” as “A plant, smaller than a shrub, which produces wood only at its base and has abundant growth branching upwards from the base, the upper stems dying back at the end of each growing season.”  A correct translation does not leave us wondering, “which half?”  Is it left, right, top or bottom? I don’t know of a single avid gardener that doesn’t know what a subshrub is.  I asked a lot of them if they’d ever heard of a half shrub.  All thought as I did – that it was a woody plant that had been cut in half down the middle to make two shrubs.

Error 3: 5th line of text.  In describing the branches, “terete” was translated as “round.” Sounds like a ball, doesn’t it?  One thinks of a caudex stemmed plant.  “Terete” means, “round in cross section.”  In every instance where Kloppenburg and Wayman translate the word terete, they translate it as “round!”  That creates a false impression.

Error 4:  10th line of text.  Inflorescences described as “umber like.”  The word supposed to be translated was “umbelliformis” (in the form of an umbel or “umbellate”).  Umbelliformis is a shape.  Umber is a colour.”

Error 5:  The “Swedish” would certainly frown upon being referred to as “the swedish.”  It seems somehow to diminish them. I guess I should cut her some slack on this error as it is the sort of typographical error all of us make, sooner or later.  I mention it only because the numbers of such careless errors made by Wayman far exceeds the numbers made by any other writer of English language publications I’ve ever encountered.

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PAGE 5

 

Eriostemma obtusifoliodes E Gilding & T. Green sp. Nova Apocynaceae

 

I choose to not recognize either Eriostemma (as a genus) or Apocynaceae (as a family) for this group of plants.  I’ve gotten some of what I believe to be authoritative opinions on that and was told if it’s my opinion, I should stick by it. So, it is my opinion and I’ll stick by it.  As I see it, Eriostemma is really not very different from Hoya.  Even the pollinarium which is the only apparently different part is really more like other hoya pollinaria than “describers” claim.

Errors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6:  2nd line of text.  It reads, “Hoya obtusifolia Wight, Fl Brit India (1838).”

1.       Fl is an abbreviation of  Flora.  Abbreviations should be followed by a period.  None there.

2.       Brit is an abbreviation of British. Abbreviations should be followed by a period.  None there.

3.       Wight did not published Hoya obtusifolia (nor anything else) in Flora of British India. He published it in Contributions to the Botany of India.

4.       Wight did not publish Hoya obtusifolia in 1838.  He published it in 1834.

5.       Flora of British India was not published in 1838.  It was published in 1883.

6.       Flora of British India was not published by Robert Wight.  It was entirely the work of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker.

All six of those errors could have been avoided, simply by going on line to the IPNI website.  It wouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, even for a slow reader.

 

Errors 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14:  2nd paragraph of text.  The same 6 errors above are repeated and added to them is the assertion that Hoya  obtusifoliodes  is authored by Wight. The two additional errors are in calling this a Hoya after just saying it was not a hoya and crediting Wight with authorship right after saying that Ed Gilding and Ted Green were the authors.

Ed Gilding can’t say he wasn’t warned that Ann Wayman would mess up his publication.  He sent me a copy to review several years ago (Funny thing – Ted Green wasn’t named as co-author then).  I urged him to send it to Asklepios for publication because I knew Wayman would mess it up.  I find it strange that otherwise intelligent people can be roped in by this know not  because they like her.  Likeable people come in all I. Qs.  Even Wayman’s #1 fan (R. D. Kloppenburg) wrote, in a letter to me that said, “She is sweet but dumb!”  I agree with half of that statement!

 

Errors 15 & 16: On page 6  we find the following:  “ETYMOLOGY: Like obtusifolia (its flower), from the Greek”

I count that an error because I don’t see what the word “etymology” has to do with anything.  I looked it up in every botanical reference I have.  It wasn’t listed in any of them.  I found it in only one reference, which is  The American Heritage College Dictionary, 3rd Edition (on page 472). 

It means, per said dictionary:  “1). The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible. 2) The branch of linguistics that deals with etymologies {ME etimologie< OFr. ethimologie < Med. Lat. ethimologia < Lat. etymologia <Gk. etumologia: etumon, true sense of a word; see ETYMON +-logia, -logy.]

                        Error 15 is the fact that this has no application here and Error 16 is saying that etymology  is from the Greek. As can be seen in the dictionary definition, the Greek form is etumologia and etumon.  Etymology is Latin, per the dictionary.

 

                        MY THOUGHT ON THIS:  I’d like to quote Harold William Rickett, formerly of the New York Botanical Garden (Circa 1957).  He taught a course in elementary botany at the Garden for several years.  He described a type of botanist that “created nothing but confusion” in plant circles.  He said, “Infatuation with words may sometimes be responsible for stagnation in learning.”  It is apparent, in this issue of Fraterna, that someone has become “infatuated with words.”

                        Someone needs to remind the officers and members of IHA that it was founded for the sole purpose of putting out a “Layman’s Language” bulletin because Wayman and company said they couldn’t understand Chris Burton’s writing.  Every issue of the IHA bulletins, in my opinion,  insults “Laymen.”

I also find the comparison of this species with Hoya obtusifolia objectionable because it implies that Hoya obtusifolia is an Eriostemma.  It, most definitely is NOT!  Of that, I am 100% certain. Proof is found in my photomicrographic pictures of its flower parts.

 

PAGE 7

 

Sex and the population in Hoyas.

 

I disagree with Kloppenburg’s and Green’s conclusion which says that hoya follicles are produced parthenocarpically.  Unlike them, I have read other illustrated treatises on how hoyas are fertilized and I have examined scores of fertilized hoya flowers.  I’m sure that many of them would have made follicles had I not cut the vine above the flowering umbel.  I also had Michael Miyashiro explain to me how he pollinated many of his hoyas.  The very fact that hoyas rarely make follicles when grown indoors and frequently do outdoors is all the proof I need to tell me that, with hoyas, as with humans, “It takes two to tango!”

In over 50 years of growing hoyas, I’ve had only one hoya form a follicle indoors.  It was Hoya padangensis.  I also had some hard to get rid of mealy bugs that year and also two birds in my greenhouse (one a hummingbird that fed constantly on hoya sap).  I still haven’t discovered how those birds got in there.  I always have a large colony of geckos and skinks in my greenhouse.  They seem to be immune to the chemicals I spray and put into my potting mix and they, like the birds, are frequently seen lapping up the flower nectar.  With all that activity, it’s a wonder more of my hoyas haven’t set pods in the greenhouse.  No plants grown in my house has ever produced a follicle.  I’ve had follicles on only 5 species outdoors.  I recently said only 3 but then I remembered two others.  One was Hoya cv. Bright One.  It had two pods, each on a different pedicel.  Hoya carnosa had 1 pod and Hoya pachyclada  had 8 pods some 1 to the pedicel and some 2 to the pedicel.  One I completely forgot about was on the hoya we used to think was Hoya fraterna, which some now call Hoya meliflua subsp. fraterna (I think it something else).  I had it outdoors one summer, while doing work on my greenhouse.  It was in a basket, hanging on a tree limb.  It put out a branch that climbed about 40 feet up that tree trunk.  When the weather got so cold I needed to bring it in, that vine refused to budge.  It and that tree were wedded for life.  I was forced to cut it off and leave it there.  There was an umbel of flowers near the middle of that vine and one 7 or 8 inch long follicle hanging from it.  I don’t know if the seeds ever ripened or were spread about by the wind.  If they were, I’m sure they were all killed over winter.  All I saw was the pod, hanging about 40 feet in the air one day and empty space, where it had been, the next. I grew that sucker for more than 20 years and that one umbel, about 40 feet above my head was the only umbel it ever produced.   Hoya parvifolia has not produced a pod for me but Alma Parker once sent me a small cutting with a pod attached.  She said it was from a plant she’d gotten from me.

 I am sure that my ‘Bright One’  was pollinated by Yellow Jackets.  Yellow Jackets had built a nest in the pot it was planted in.  When I picked up the basket, which had been hanging on my upstairs balcony, I was attacked and had to call 911.  I spent the night in Piedmont Hospital due to an allergy to Yellow Jacket venom.

Besides the above:

Error 1:  The statement was made by Mr. Green on page 7 that, “As far as I know, only Michael Miyashiro and Ed Gilding have been successful in producing hybrids.”  What does he call  Emilio’s ‘Mathilde’ and ‘Chouke’  or the new hybrid of Emilio’s (I can’t think of its name)?

Error 2:  Last paragraph, left column.  I am sure the one sentence in that paragraph was meant to start with “I.”  It started with “believe.” That’s the type of careless error all of us make sooner or later so  I’d not hold that against the editor.

Error 3:  He described what he called parthenogenesis pollination on page 8.  What he described was plain old heterosexual pollination.  Just because the pollinium fertilizes a flower by a different route than the one he thinks is the correct one, doesn’t mean that the pollinium did not pollinate the flower.

 

PAGE 8

 

Numbers

 

 I agree  with Mr. Green that there are probably more hoyas than have been published but I think a thousand more very unlikely.  I also disagree with his and Kloppenburg’s preoccupation with Hoya rufo-lanata,  almost to the point of it being a fetish.  According to the late Hon. Douglas H. Kent, Hoya rufo-lanata Ridl. is not a hoya  at all.  It is actually  Genianthus rufo-velutinus King & Gamble.  I’ll take Doug’s word over that of any other hoya taxonomist (amateur or professional, living or dead) any day of the week, month or year.

 

Addendum to the above by Anabel Wayman.

 

This starts off, “I’m going to assume that there is no house flies in Sweden” and it goes down hill from there.  It isn’t all bad though.  She appears to think that her hoyas are pollinated with the help of insects.  I must congratulate her on having sense enough not to plant all the seeds she gets and for not distributing the resulting seedlings far and wide.

PAGE 9

 

Ads

 

My advice is:  Don’t buy from these two companies.  The culture without soil pots are expensive and are soon outgrown.  If these are like the sample one sent to me by the manufacturer,  the pot is filled with little clay balls.  Roots stick to the balls and are badly damaged when you try to transplant. 

The hoya seller has a large collection of mostly misidentified hoyas but only a few of them are actually available for purchase at any time. See her on line catalog.  It is very revealing.

 

Ted Green’s Editorial

 

I’m inclined to agree with most of what Ted Green said in this editorial but I wonder why the editor isn’t the one to write the editorial.  If someone is circulating a petition to correct the situation he described, I’d like to sign it.

 

PAGE 14 & 15

 

Photo Gallery

 

Error #1: Left column Center.  She says that this is Hoya subcalva  and that “it was originally published as an Eriostemma.”  That simply is not true.  Hoya subcalva was first published by Burkill in 1901 (without description but none was required then).  Eriostemma is a section of Hoya invented by R. Schlechter in 1913.  The first time the name Eriostemma ever appeared in a Hoya publication was in 1913.  He called it a “Section.” AND Schlechter did NOT include Hoya subcalva in the Eriostemma Section.  His only mention of Hoya subcalva was to say, “In case the assumption of Burkill is true, that his Hoya subcalva Burk. is identical with Hoya megalaster Warb., then the first name must be used, since Hoya  megalaster Warb. has been known in the literature for years, though was not published with a description until 1907.”  What’s more, he put Hoya megalaster (syn. Hoya subcalva) in the Physostelma section, NOT the Eriostemma section.  Furthermore, the plant pictured doesn’t fit Burkill’s Hoya subcalva description, nor what is currently assumed to be his type specimen.  And, by the way, for those of you who have lumped BSI-1 and DAV-817 and call both Hoya subcalva: My photomicrographs show them to be two different species.

Error #2:  She said that Hoya magnifica (Bottom Left) twines in a clockwise direction. I was taught in school that all vines in the northern hemisphere twine in a counter clockwise direction just as water flows out of our bathtubs and down the drain in a counter clockwise direction. I was taught that the opposite is true in the southern hemisphere.  I checked my plant a few minutes ago and found it twining in a counter clockwise direction.  I suppose that one can tie the branches into a clockwise position and force them to grow that way but when I’ve tried it I’ve found, the next time I looked, that the vines had escaped and were doing what comes naturally for them.

Errors #3:  Top flower, right column.  It is labeled Hoya lasiantha Korthall.  Korthals is misspelled as “Korthall”  The correct name is “Hoya lasiantha (Korth. ex Blume) Korth.”  

Error #4:  Her statement that this species was hunted for over 100 years and that nobody believed it existed except in someone’s mind,” is completely false.  I, for one,  never doubted it’s existence. I got my first start of it in 1968 from a Frenchman who was in a Hoya Robin with me, sponsored by the Cactus and Succulent Society. I wasn’t experienced enough to keep it living long but I never doubted its existence.  I am somebody and I resent having her speak for me.

Error #5:  Bottom right picture.  She says it is Hoya dimorpha (which I seriously doubt) and that “it has beautiful lemon yellow flowers.”  The flowers pictured are dull, grayish pink  It’s funny that almost all the pictures in all the books this person has any part of that are described as yellow are pink and those described as pink are dandelion yellow. 

There are several positions that a colour blind person should never have.  They are: paint chemist, flower show judge, fashion coordinator, interior decorator and editor of any publication where colour is even mentioned.  I think that maybe the only job I’d recommend this gal for is that of a renderer.  After all, nobody cares what colour the used  motor oil cleans up to be, as long as it lubricates your engine properly.  --- Nah!  I couldn’t trust her to not play that old game of “Let’s don’t but say we did!”  If she were the renderer, I’d be afraid of getting old dirty motor oil in a shiny new can next time I needed an oil change.

 

Photo Gallery pages 16 & 17

 

Error #1:  Top picture, right column.  She misspelled Hoya juannguoiana as Hoya juanneguoiana.

Error #2:  She said of Hoya pubicalyx  cv. Jungle Garden that it one of the oldest and most beautiful of all the hoyas.  This cultivar appeared in my lifetime (when I was approaching middle aged) and, though I’m no spring chicken, I’ve several hundred years  to go before I’m as old as one of the oldest hoyas. 

Error #3:  She said that Hoya pubicalyx “has been known for well over a hundred years.”  That is not true.  It has only been known for 91 years, having been published in 1918.  That’s getting close to 100 years, but it’s far from “well over a hundred years.”

 

Photo Gallery pages 18 & 19

 

There really isn’t much that’s right about these two pages, other than Hoya cinnamomifolia.

Error #1:  The middle plant in the left column is Hoya pubicalyx cv. Royal Hawaiian Purple. It is not a chimera. It is a hoya that I sold to a customer in Manila.  Dexter Heuschkel saw it in her shop; bought it and sent a cutting to Kloppenburg.  Kloppenburg assumed it to be a native, which it wasn’t.

Error #2:  The picture at the bottom left is most definitely NOT Hoya bordenii.  You can find proof in PS-TheHoyan  Vol. 2, #1.

Whether or not the hoya pictured here as Hoya megalaster is it or not is anybody’s guess. The picture is too lousy to see any detail.

Error #3:  I can’t prove it yet but I am 100% certain that the plant pictured in the right column center is not Hoya excavata.  It doesn’t fit the authors’ description in any way.

Error #4 ???: This is the one at the bottom on the right. I have this and am awaiting flowers.  I’m betting the entire sorry looking plant that this is just another clone of Hoya incrassata.  If it turns out to be that, I’m giving it away to someone I don’t like.

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Page 20

 

Here you are asked to  “patronize our advertisers.”  I am unfamiliar with the “Concepts Lecault” so cannot say one way or other what to expect from them. The product advertised I consider useless.

 I recommend that you buy from SRQ only if you don’t care if you get the hoya you ordered or not because most of the hoyas in this seller’s on line catalog are mislabeled.

Ted Green has a lot of correctly labeled plants and a lot of incorrectly labeled plants.  He sells only cuttings.  I have found his cuttings easy to root (others say the opposite) but he is very stingy.  His prices are not only sky high, they’re on the upper layer of sky high and a quarter the length of anyone else’s.  He won’t sell to me because, (a direct quote), “you’ll criticize my labeling.”  My reply to him was, “I’ll criticize your labeling anyway.”  By not selling to me, all he does is  deny himself the pleasure of totin’ my money to the bank. If you order from him, be sure to stress, “NO SUBSTITUIONS,”  or you may end up with an entire order of things you didn’t order and, possibly, already have.

Error #1:  Anabel said, “In Fraterna 2nd quarter the front cover photo and cover story was credited with the collection of CMF-8 to Charles Marden Fitch.  I have been informed that the name should be Charles Marsden Fitch.”  

She was misinformed. It would have been easy for her to check this fact before this issue.   I have in front of me as I write this, the following:

1). Several years worth of Garden Writers of America Directories.  The gentleman’s name is listed in all of them as Charles Marden Fitch. 

2).  I have in front of me several letters from this gentleman.  His letter head shows the name as Charles Marden Fitch. 

3).  I have in front of me, as I write this, several issues of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden Journal with articles by him in them.  All show his name as Charles Marden Fitch.

4).  I have in front of me two of his books (The Complete Book of Houseplants Under Lights and The Complete Book of Miniature Roses).  Both of these books show the author’s name as Charles Marden Fitch.

5).  I have in front of me his application for membership in the Hoya Society International.  He filled out his name as Charles Marden Fitch.

I’ve been told that the biggest insult you can bestow on a person is to misspell his name.  I consider this man to be a friend of mine.  I hate to see him maligned.

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PAGE 21

 

Here the lady is advertising the book that she and Kloppenburg allegedly co-authored.  She said, “Nothing like this has ever been attempted before!”  All I can add to that is, “Thank God!”  It isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.!!!!!!!!!!!! For the amazingly low price of zero dollars and zero cents, I’ll be happy to send you a critique of this and other books of this pair, via e-mail attachment. This includes a list of things I found wrong and directs you to the right information. If you’d prefer hard copy, send $15.95.