I received Hoya isabelchanae, then named Hoya sp. GPS 7-35, in May of 2018 as small bare rooted plant. I carefully transplanted it into a 3 inch net pot and put it into one of my homemade propagation boxes. Below the buds of the plant:
Hoya isabelchanae was named after Isabel Claire Chan Yuen Ching, late daughter of a Singaporean patron of botanical research and a gardener with an interest in Hoya.
I had been wanting this Hoya for some time after I first heard about it back in 2016. Little did I know that I had purchased it in 2018 under a collection number of GPS 7-35. I found this out when I researched the accession number. From the description by Michele Rodda and Nathalie Simonsson:
“Hoya isabelchanae is only known from the base of Gunung Boliohutu, Sulawesi, where it was collected as a sterile cutting in 2002 and brought into cultivation at the Royal Botanic GardenEdinburgh where it regularly blooms in a heated greenhouse from May to October. The species was collected in primary forest and it was growing in shaded but exposed area on a decaying tree 12 m tall. A further collection is widely available in cultivation under Gerard Paul Shirley number GPS10161 and 7-35 http://www.paulshirleysucculents.nl/shop_hoyas.htm [accessed on 24 June 2016]. This accession is apparently also from Sulawesi but no further collection information is available.”
I have to repeat myself as Archie and the Big Mac don’t flower at the same time every day so I will repeat yesterday’s post with a slightly different photo:
I am lucky enough to have both of these great plants in flower at the same time so here they are:
Hoya archboldiana YM Excellent flowered in only 10 months from a cutting, which was super fast for an Archie. The leaves are bigger and less rippled than my Pink Archie; so even if the flowers are almost identical it is still a great plant. Also it must be remembered that this entire complex of Hoyas have extremely variable flower coloration dependent upon the conditions under which it is grown.
Apparently the YM in Hoya archboldiana YM Excellent stands for York Meredith from Australia who gave the plant to Ted Green. Here is what Christine Burton had to say about it back in 2010:
“Due to Ted Green’s attaching the frivolous title of ‘YM-Excellent’ to the giant red one, in a manner that is supposed to indicate a cultivar, people appear to think it is a cultivar. Friends, that big red Hoya archboldiana IS the only one of those “Archies” that exactly matches C. Norman’s holotype specimen. It IS Hoya archboldianavar. archboldiana. The YM-Excellent does not belong there. I doubt that “Jumbo Red” belongs there, but I could be wrong about that. What the YM-Excellent means is that Ted Green bought it from an Australian collector, whose name was (maybe still is) York Meredith”.
I received Hoya archboldiana YM Excellent from Ted Green via a very good Hoya friend in Colorado. I was intrigued by the incredible photo that he has posted on his site of what the flower was supposed to look like. Of course now that it has bloomed, the flowers look almost identical to the pink Archie that I already have.
A knowledgeable viewer of my YouTube channel has found another name for this plant. It is called Hoya sp. Phukradeung Loei Province. I found a few photos online and it indeed does match up.
Hoya sp. SR 2007-13, AKA Hoya sp. Phukradeung Loei Province, is a great Hoya when grow for the foliage alone and even a better Hoya if you are looking for a flowering challenge. The flowers if you are lucky enough to ever see them are incredibly fragrant. It is an easy grower that I can highly recommend!
Here are a couple of close ups of the very fragrant flowers of Hoya sp. SR 2007-13:
