PS-TheHoyan
Vol. 9, #3
SOMEONE IS CONFUSED & I AM NOT THAT SOMEONE!
PROOF OF CONFUSION - #1
Why do I make this accusation? Read on:
In Fraterna vol. 20, #4, Mr.
Kloppenburg published a new hoya name.
It is Hoya ramosii Kloppenb. et Siar. I may be wrong but I suspect that Siar’s name
is appended only as a courtesy and to give the scent of authority to an otherwise sloppy
presentation.
1). Mr. Kloppenburg cited, as Type, a specimen #75500, which he said was at
Philippine National Herbarium (PNH). He
did not say whose #75500 this is but I’m sure that it is one collected by Ramos
& Edaño.
2). I have in front of me an inventory, made by Kloppenburg, of all
the hoya specimens in that herbarium. It
doesn’t have a Ramos & Edaño #75500 (which was collected in 1928). In fact it doesn’t have any specimens dating
before 1946. All older ones were
destroyed by the Japanese when they occupied
3).
I have in front of me an inventory, made by Kloppenburg of all the hoya
specimens in UC-Berkeley Herbarium. It
lists a Ramos & Edaño #75500. It was of material collected in 1928. It bears the label of Hoya intermedia Schltr. There is a duplicate in NY Botanical Garden’s
Herbarium. I had the opportunity to
examine it and it looked like Hoya kentiana to me.
4).
Here are a number of pictures, all taken by R. D. Kloppenburg, of hoyas that he considered to be Ramos &
Edaño #75500:
Left: In reducing
the picture size to fit this space, the writing on the face can’t be read. It says, “DK’s label on the back of this
photo reads, ‘UC Herb. #75500.”
Right: The label on the back of this photo, in
Kloppenburg’s own, very distinctive handwriting also reads, “UC Herb. #75500.”
The pollinarium above is labeled on the back side, in
Kloppenburg’s own, very distinctive handwriting, “UC Herb. #75500.”
NOTE: I have seen other specimens which were
labeled as Hoya intermedia Schlechter.
All others I’ve seen appeared to me to be what we now call Hoya
heuschkeliana Kloppenb. The
name Hoya
intermedia Schltr. was never published and would by now be untenable
due to a valid publication of the name for a Fijian species by A. C. Smith. If
you’ll go back an issue of both Fraterna and PS-TheHoyan you’ll see
that Kloppenburg tried to rename Hoya intermedia A. C. Smith and call
it Hoya
smithii. That publication is not
valid because this change isn’t allowed by the Code. Hoya intermedia A. C.
Smith is and always will be Hoya intermedia A. C. Smith, unless
someone finds a previous publication of the same species and sinks it. That is very likely as Smith did learn that it
was a cultivated plant that escaped cultivation. He said that it had not been found in the
wild except in that one location. It
could have been imported from
Now, dear friends, take a look at Kloppenburg’s
publication of the name Hoya ramosii in Fraterna 20. #4. Do you see
anything that looks at all like these 3 pictures, which Kloppenburg claims are
this species?
What do I think these pictures are? I believe that #1 and 3 are probably Hoya
vitellinoides Bakh. f. and I believe picture
#2 is most likely Hoya imbricata or one of it’s varieties. I have never seen that double ridge in the
anther wing area on any other hoyas.
Mind you, I’m not saying that I am 100% right. I think that my theories should be
investigated by someone with younger eyes and an uncluttered brain! I could be wrong but never as wrong as DK is
90% of the time. The difference between us is that I admit being wrong and eat
a lot of crow when I’m proved to be wrong.
DK simply remains quiet, no matter how wrong he is proved to be. That
seems to be interpreted by most hoya fanciers as “taking the high road!” Needless to say, I have another name for it!
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PROOF
OF CONFUSION #2:
In Fraterna vol. 21, #4,
Kloppenburg published a new name for an old hoya species, Hoya pycnophylla Rech. He called it, Hoya nuuuliensis.
Left: DK’s type
specimen for the new name he gave to a previously published hoya species. He calls it Hoya nuuuliensis.
Right: A photocopy
of the previously published hoya, which is Hoya pycnophylla Rechinger. This is a photocopy of Rechinger’s holotype
specimen (his own collection #468). This copy is on a very slightly smaller
scale than the one on the left. It was
published by Rechinger in an article, Botanisch-zoologische Ergebnisse von den
Samoainsein om DENKSCHRIFTEN D. KAIS. ADAD.. D. WISS.
The only differences between these two is that
Rechinger described the leaf veins as quintuplinervis and conspicuous. A close examination of his type shows that
some leaves appear quintuplinervis but most appear triplinerved. Any other
differences in the two author’s description can be chalked up to two different
author’s interpretation of word meanings.
I believe that anyone but Kloppenburg will recognize
Kloppenburg’s plant as Hoya pycnophylla Rechinger.
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Hoya camphorifolia Warb.
Photo by Cathie Perpich
Question: I’m confused.
I have seen numerous pictures of hoyas that are labeled Hoya
camphorifolia. All of them look
like different species to me. Mr. Green
sold it to my friend as Hoya fischeriana. She gave me a cutting
of it. We’d both like to know the
correct name for this species. Please, help!
Which hoya is Hoya camphorifolia and which is Hoya
fischeriana?” ----- Judy Simons,
Answer: Since most of Warburg’s holotype specimens
were destroyed when Allied bombs fell on Vienna during WW-2, absolute proof of
which hoya is which cannot be established, in some cases. He may have made duplicates of some of them
but the late Hon. Douglas H. Kent searched high and low for isotypes and found
none of this species.
I found several non-type specimens of Hoya camphorifolia in the US National
Herbarium (Smithsonian). These date from the same period when Warburg was collecting
in the
.
Above: Hoya camphorifolia leaf outlines
drawn from description given by Warburg in his original publication. They match, exactly, leaves on McGregor’s 334
and Ramos & Edaño’s 29092. Some of
the McGregor leaves were twice longer but the same width.
Above: Hoya
fischeriana Warb. The two leaves
shown are based entirely on Warburg’s Hoya fischeriana name publication. I found several non-type specimens at US
which look exactly as this one. The one
with flowers appears to not be this species.
One that I examined matched Warburg’s description of Hoya quinquenervia and the other matched Hoya
merrillii.
IML-1289 was listed in David Liddle’s 2009 catalog, as
Hoya
fischeriana. I haven’t seen it
in bloom yet but I made two complete sets of microscopic pictures of its flower
parts, using flowers furnished by David Liddle and Michael Miyashiro. These flowers fit Warburg’s description quite
well, but the foliage doesn’t. Those of
the one I (and most others) call Hoya camphorifolia (pictured above),
don’t fit at all. I found two others pictured on Web pages, one on a site with
French annotation and the other with English.
The former has pink reflexed flowers with white coronas, tipped pink in
the center. The latter has yellow rotate to
slightly campanulate flowers with white coronas, tipped pink in the center.
Now, here is a picture of David Liddle’s picture of
IML-1289, which he thought was Hoya fischeriana:
Left: This is
David and Iris Liddle’s IML-1289, which was listed in their 2009 catalog as Hoya
fischeriana Warb. Its flowers
match Warburg’s flower description quite well.
It’s leaves do not match at all well. When
David gave me that picture, he gave me permission to use it as I see fit. The differences I see between this and
Warburg’s description could very well be due to the immaturity of my
plant. Maybe, in time, it will grow to
be as large as Warburg described.
Right: These are two different species that I found in
other people’s catalogs, labeled as Hoya fischeriana.
Add to that Hoya camphorifolia, which Ted
Green persists in calling Hoya fischeriana, and you know just
how confused the entire hoya community is concerning which hoya is Hoya
fischeriana.
My conclusion is that we do not yet know exactly which
(if any) hoya in circulation today is Hoya fischeriana and we probably
never will know until “the Second Coming!” It certainly is NOT the one Mr. Green is
currently selling mislabeled as Hoya fischeriana. His doesn’t match
in either flower or leaves.
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Hoya diptera Seem.
I saw this species pictured in an on line hoya
seller’s catalog a day or two ago. It
was mislabeled, Hoya vanuatuensis. I suspect that the lady, who is a new comer
to the hoya scene may have read Mr. Green’s catalog
and read his statement about having previously thought that one of his hoyas
was Hoya
diptera but on learning that it wasn’t, he published it as Hoya
vanuatuensis. Friends, it was a
different species that Mr. Green used to sell mislabeled as Hoya
diptera. That one is similar but not nearly as
colourful as this one. It’s foliage is quite different
too.
Hoya vanuatuensis is the same one Mr. Green used to sell, mislabeled as
Hoya
chlorantha. I ordered it from
him and was very upset when I got it. I wrote to him that he’d sent the wrong
plant. I enclose a picture and
description of the Hoya chlorantha type specimen as proof. Mr. Green wrote back and said, “Yes, I caught
that too but I had to call it something!”
It’s one thing to make and honest mistake but
something entirely different to make a mistake on purpose, i.e., just to have
something to call it! I know people who still think this one is Hoya
chlorantha, thanks to this learned
gentleman!
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