Hoya lacunosa

This is a form of Hoya lacunosa we found in S. Peninsula Malaysia. The small tapering leaves have prominent protruding venation. It is reminiscent of the purple flowered Dischidia hirsuta, just less hairy.

Its a neat little vine that has typical fragrant lacunosa flower.

This species is actually a very robust and free flowering candidate to light up a high rise balcony, provided that at least a couple of hours of morning sun is available.

Glorious Hoya waymaniae

... But soft, what light through yonder shade cloth breaks?
It is the east, and Wayman is the sun

Images of Hoya waymaniae, captured on a rather gloomy afternoon. Everything about this rather slow grower is unusual - the thick, cryptic, slightly felty leaves and the bright yellow bloom with protruding coronas. The long peduncle of this species isolate the umbels from the leaves and allow me more flexibility to manipulate the light and accentuate the three dimensionality of the bloom.

Here's a little more of my self-indulgence ....

Hoya lasiantha and H praetorii

This is a couple of exceedingly beautiful and closely related Hoyas ....
....Hoya lasiantha, found in Peninsula Malaysia and Borneo - has larger golden flowers with prominent corona protruding like eroded molars.
.... the umbels on my palm somehow reminded me of a hatchling of small chicks.

Unlike most Hoyas, it is a scrambling shrub. It is reported to be an epiphyte in the wild. It is not a difficult plant to grow in the lowlands, but can become straggly, so constant prunning is advisable to keep it neat and will also provide some backup cuttings in case something catastrophic happened to the mother plant.
....under suitable lighting, the white hairs seem to emit a silver glow.

The second plant, Hoya praetorii, is a rarer prospect, and smaller in stature too. Unlike the former, this a a decidedly more difficult plant for me. This is a native of Sumatra.

It differs from the former by its corona,which is salmon-pink, less massive and less angular than its bigger relative.

Madangia (Hoya) inflata

First described by PI Forster and the late Mr Liddle in 1997, this plant was initially placed as a monotypic genus based on the fused corolla and fused outer corona as shown in pictures above. The genus Madangia is subsumed within Hoya now, I am retaining this in the title merely for nostalgia.

The line drawing from the original publication is reproduced as follows. The venation of the dark green leaf as well as the thin black stem is rather characteristic as well.
So far it has only been found in the Madang Province of New Guinea. After numerous attempts to establish this plant, I eventually have a flowering vine this year - so its certainly not one of those robust vines that had run amok at the plot.

Like most tropical Hoyas, a high humidity (above 80%) and a wooden trellis or pole to climb and root is important for success. Some Hoya growers coil their vines around the metal wires of the hanging pots - which will not optimise root growth. Peduncle and flowers appeared at about 30-40% shade so it does not seem to need a lot of light.

A walk in the rain

Fed by the heavy downpour, the gentle little stream running down the mountain had turned into a raging beast. I watched in amazement as this small frog made a suicidal dive into the furious brown depth with a trailing cry of Goodbye cruel world . Pelted by rain and deafened by the roaring torrent, I was an alien in this dark world of snaking roots ....
and angry waters ....
and pervasive wetness ....
.... fern-like orchids Podochilus microphyllus and an Appendicula draped the trunks
and boulders....
....the rather uncommon Hoya coriacea dangled from a tree ....

....the torch of a forest ginger, probably Globba patens, lit up the rocky bank....

....out of the blue, a black giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor) bolted from the canopy, followed soon after by its cream coloured cousin Ratufa affinis scrambling up the tree.
Taken by surprise, I only managed some blury shots. These are amongst the largest squirrels in the world - and to see them side by side in the wild really made my day - even if it was a wet, gloomy one.

.... by the way, the suicidal amphibian is a torrent frog, Amolops larutensis - which as its name suggests, relishes opportunities like this.

The hump back Dischidia

Dischidia astephana is endemic to the highland of Malaysia. It belongs to a group of Dischidias with turtle shell leaves that attract ants below the surface, However, its bumpy leaf and the five-lobed scarlet flowers set it apart from all other similar species. The strange leaves even turn purplish under bright light !
While wandering in the highland, we noticed this tree with one fork showing the flaking bark typical of many species from the Myrte family (Myrtaceae), and the other smothered with this Dischidia .....
....which is kind of baffling since the flaking bark is supposed to rid the tree of epiphytes. Anyway, this species is documented to be found commonly found on Leptospermum and probably other myrtle-like plants. You can see that the leaves actually stack on top of each other - creating folds upon folds of hiding places for its insect friends.
.... I gave a few taps on the foliage with a stick and angry ants started oozing out from the crevices.
....the abdomens, which are shaped like black spades from poker cards, identified them as Crematogaster sp ....
Here's a closeup of the unique flower. While most Dischidias are rather drab, this species is very desirable horticulturally. If only it is more tolerable to the lowland heat .....

Hoya campanulata lookalikes part1

Warning: This may be a bit dry for some people .....

There are 2 groups of Hoyas from SE Asia with white, waxy, bell-shaped flowers which has caused confusion amongst growers and taxonomists alike due to their apparent similarities and vendors applying errorneous tags without due diligence. The first is the Hoya campanulata group which appeared widespread in SE Asia and the second are from the wallichii complex which was collected mostly (maybe even exclusively) from Borneo.

Now let us examine the following 3 photos:

Vegetatively and in flower they look so different from other Hoyas and so similar to each other that one can almost be excused for thinking that they are one and the same. Even R.E. Rintz, who published an excellent early paper on Hoyas of Peninsula Malaysia, lumped them into a single species - Hoya campanulata.

Now, let's do some closeups of the corona ....

.... the top most plant has a rather fat and succulent corona (the star-shaped protrusion at the centre of the flower). It had been named Hoya wallichii for a very long time until it was recently deemed to be a separate species - H. danumensis, based on some subtle difference. This plant appeared to be confined to Borneo.

The lower 2 plants have slender corona and are collectively lumped under an umbrella called Hoya campanulata - although as I will show later, there appear to be more than 1 species there. This group has a wider distribution, from Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Java and Sumatra.

And here's a portrait of the real Hoya campanulata from Curtis Botanical Magazine, renown for accurate taxonomic depictions of many exotic plants collected all over the world during 1800s. The picture clearly shows the slender corona similar to the latter 2 plants here. It is taken from Simones' excellent web site.

So hopefully, we got these 2 rather different species sorted out.

I shall end this post by flashing another Borneo native that looked like a H. wallichii (or danumensis, take your pick) by virtue of the fat corona, and yet looked distinct in its smaller flatter corolla that curl backwards as shown below :

Any idea what is this ?

Hoya campanulata lookalikes part2

In this follow up post I will focus on the Hoya campanulata complex. An in-situ photo of the plant is shown above; the vine scrambling on rocks, tree trunks and even on the ground of the forested banks of a jungle stream . Beyond twenty metres or so from the stream, it is nowhere to be found - hence one can deduce that it requires very high humidity.

From my conversation with taxonomists and growers, H. campanulata is quite variable in terms of the colour, size and curvature of the bloom. However, this is not in agreement with David Liddle, who had generously shared with me his knowledge until he unexpectedly passed away. Accordingly to him, there is a smaller form known as H. cysthiantha aff (for affiliate)and another form known as the true campanulata.

By the way, the suffix aff was appended because it was believed that the name Hoya cysthiantha was not validly published. However weeks ago Miss Christine Burton told me that Kew had accepted its validity after all.

As you can see from below, these 2 forms are quite different in terms of size, shape and even colour. The yellowish form at the lower picture is believed to be the real H. campanulata while the white one is believed to be H. cysthiantha aff.
Attached below is the closeup of the corona. The yellowish flower on the left clearly showed a more slender and curved corona.
I shall leave it to the taxonomists to argue over this subject - but for me, they are clearly distinct irregardless of their latin names.

For those who does not care much about all this mumbo jumbo, here are a couple of portraits of the attractive flowers. And did I say they smell like lemon too ?

Mass flowering of Hoya diversifolia

A common large vine found throughout SE Asia including Singapore, often draping trees near mangroves or rivers.

At a Coastal forest

Generally mangroves are not my favourite place ....with their muddy ground, humid pungent air and a potential crocodile lurking somewhere. On top of that, this particular one off the east coast of Malaysia appeared to be infested with belligerent macaques - I took heed of their shrieking war cries and angry barrage of the twigs tossed from up high and made a hasty retreat the day before.

Yet the next day, I returned, with a companion and an umbrella - just in case. I had to get through this mangrove to reach a jungle path behind it and my curiosity was getting the better of me.

Almost immediately, we were met by this critter, which appeared to be a form of plantain squirrel that is larger and more bushy-tailed than its southern cousin...... .... our attention soon turned to the water to find some darting mud skippers - a melancholic looking goby which can breath air....in fact it has been kown to drown in aquariums tanks which have too much water. .... the large orchid Cymbidium finlaysonii is everywhere near the clearings, even growing on the sandy ground. As we ventured further inland, we entered a lowland dipterocarp forest which turned out to be an orchid paradise. I was surprise to see this Dendrobium aloifolium growing in clumps on boulders so near the ground level - I had previously only seen them on fallen logs - usually they are perched high on the inaccessible parts of the trees. This plant had very interesting succulent leaves but its flowers - borned on the long terminal spikes, were minute and unattractive. Bulbophyllums seemingly from section Sestochilus were all over the place - this one dangling above the water was pregnant. It appeared that I had just missed the flowering season as none of them were blooming ..... .... another orchid that looked also like a Bulbophyllm but was in fact Thelasis pygmaea.Draping the branches and rocks are these Dischidia bengalensis .... a common and widespread Asclepiad that lived in close association with ants..... just above our heads are these Hydnophytum formicarum - a curious member of the Rubiaceae family that had hollow chambered stem sheltering ants and many other creepy crawlies - this particular one had a 10cm long centipede curled within. These tenants paid their dues by providing protection and whatever crap and leftovers to nourish the plant.On higher ground and crossing a stream, green and red forms of Nepenthes mirabilis were growing on the soggy banks. Some Dipterocarps had left their winged fruits on the ground ; these would make an interesting potpourri - all I need is a few drops of fragrant oil !As we walked pass this straggler vine and its host, we were reminded once again that even in the seemingly docile plant world, the savage struggle for resources was unrelenting ..... Bad luck for the tree ....its fate was sealed. The straggler constricted and cut through its bark, impeding the flow of water and food, and the tree suffered a slow demise. After it eventually rotted away, only a giant spring-like liana will remain, with one less competitor for sunlight.Trees along the trail were not really very big - this was one of the bigger one, and came equipped with a useful little hollow. The monkeys did not show up this time but the rain did, so we had use for the umbrella afterall. We kept our heads and noses dry....more or less.