Thanks to Ric Morier for reaching out to me and giving me the history of how he came into possession of this wonderful plant. Here is what he wrote about the day he came across Hoya sp. VN Vietnam, which now has a name assigned to it: Hoya hainanensis:
Hi Doug,
Someone gave me a heads up that you wanted to know more about this species. I just saw your YouTube video and congratulations on blooming it.
So here is the story on that Hoya. I met Ngo Minh in Saigon and we arranged to go west and meet Hong Nguyen. We had a hard time communicating as my Vietnamese is nonexistent and their English was slightly better than my Vietnamese. So needless to say… I found myself on a mopped for over two hours headed towards West Vietnam
not far from Cambodia. I was exhausted as it was like 98 degrees.
Hong and her family were so lovely and friendly and I could of spent days with them.
She had lots of rare Hoyas, a lot of them looked to have been recently collected in the surrounding area.
The VN Vietnam attracted my eye for the lovely reddish foliage so I asked Hong for a piece. She took a sharpie and wrote the name on the leaf. I assumed it was collected in Vietnam, probably in the surrounding mountains. I will try and reach Hong and see if it has been given another name.
As you said on the video, it is very rare in collections.
If you could possibly send my a picture of the bloom, it might help Hong to ID.
I’ll send you some pics from that day back in Dec-2015.
Be well,
Ric
