Here are the flowers for the two clones of Hoya vitiensis:

I have grown and flowered with quite a lot of difficulty the regular mauve form of Hoya vitiensis. I vaguely was aware that there was a yellow clone out there, but it was not really on my radar. This plant turned out to be every bit as challenging to flower as the mauve version out there taking me at least 3 years to figure out.

I am not revealing my source for the plant that I received as Hoya desvoeuxensis as it was not their fault. Since this plant is so hard to flower, and the leaves are identical to Hoya desvoeuxensis and other Hoyas as well, there was no way to tell what this plant was until it flowered. Here is the problem with a bad ID, not only did my friend not have the plant she thought she had, but the person she got the plant from may not even have been the one who made the initial mistake. Also, unfortunately I sold at least a dozen rooted cuttings of what I thought was H. desvoeuxensis so whoever bought those plants from me also does not have the plant they thought they had. It is also possible that they also may have passed it on. I did say when I sold the plant that I had never flowered it before so I guess there was not an ironclad guarantee that it was what I said it was, but it is very unfortunate all the way around!

I expected the buds on the plant to open in about 2 weeks after observing their size the day before so imagine my disappointment the next morning when I opened the tent. The buds on one plant had opened and I was shocked to find some yellow flowers with a reddish corona and not the very large pink bell-shaped flowers that I expected from Hoya desvoeuxensis. It did not take too long to ID the Hoya and it was a new one to me, but not the plant that I had wished for all of these years.

The buds now reached a size where I no longer feared that they would blast and I would sometimes open the tent 3 times a day just to check their progress!

I have been growing a plant seriously for more than 3 years using every trick at my command trying to get it to flower; the plants name was Hoya desvoeuxensis. I finally had it growing in 3 different mediums and moved it from a 14 hour day to a 12 hour day and let it climb to the ceiling in my grow tent. It started to bud up, and I lost my first set of buds, but then a miracle happened and two different plants began to bud up; I was beyond happy; I was finally going to flower this pink, bell-shaped beauty!

Hoya apoda has probably been my favorite Hoya discovery of 2022. It flowers profusely with up to 8 flowers open at any one time. It seems to continually put out new buds and appears to be a relatively easy grower. This plant turned out to be much better than Hoya exilis, which seems to be at least at first glance kind of boring. Hoya apoda for now seems to be most readily available from Indonesian vendors, but hopefully in the near future many more sellers will feature it closer to home. Hoya apoda gets my highest recommendation!

At the time of Hoya apoda’s discovery in 1912, the western part of the Island of New Guinea was controlled by the Netherlands. It was discovered by C. Boden Kloss, an English zoologist and intrepid explorer. The plant was published by Spencer Le Marchant Moore, and English botanist who died in 1931.

Apoda in the animal world means limbless or not having limbs and in the botanical world, it means stalkless. I believe it is referring to this Hoya not having visible peduncles, which makes apoda a very apt name indeed.

Below you can see the size of the flowers again a measuring tape: