Hoya insularis is a really unusual Hoya whose flowers look more like a Dischidia. I had a lot of fun with this plant and hopefully I can maintain it for a long time to come. It gets a high recommendation for all who love the weird and unusual in the Hoya world!

Here are a couple of close ups of the flowers, which kind of look like baby squids!

It was hard to judge when the buds would open as there is not that much difference between the buds and flowers. However it finally did open; the flowers have no scent and as of this writing, I am unsure how long they last before falling off. I did probe the flowers with a cat whisker in the off chance that they could easily be pollinated.

As I was examining my plant looking for new leaves in January of this year, I noticed a little quarter inch protrusion that looked like in was the start of a peduncle. Sure enough that is what it was, and slowly but surely it began to grow. Eventually it started to bud up with the pedicels growing longer and longer. It seemed to take forever, and the peduncle was as thing as a thread.

Surprising me as the weeks went by, my little leca grown plant with barely any water in the reservoir began to grow and sent out a couple of new vines and started to form new leaves. I was pretty happy!

One thing losing my soil grown specimen taught me was that this Hoya was very sensitive to over watering and root rot so I immediately cut back on watering my plant growing in leca. I decided to only water it when it was completely dry, and then only put about a 1/4 inch of nutrient water into the container after flushing the media with fresh water. I still did not hold out much hope after experiencing the rapid decline of my soil based plant.

The stronger of my two specimens was growing in soil, but with one watering mistake I took care of that. I watered it, and within 2-3 days it started to fail. It is amazing to me how quickly root rot can set in a destroy a plant. I tried taking a cutting, but it too did not make it. I was pretty upset, because getting these rare Hoyas is a difficult proposition especially these days.

It is not often that one has enough plant material to try growing it using different media and methods to see what works out best. I was fortunate that with two plants, I could try growing it two different ways. One plant arrived in chunky potting soil and another arrived growing in coconut husk. I left the one in soil alone, but the one in coconut husk I cleaned up as best I could and put it into leca to be grown using passive hydro.

I am very lucky that I was sent two specimens of this plant within a month of each other. I want to thank Mandy Lin, and also April Mall from Unsolicited Plant Talks for sending me small, but well rooted plants late in the summer of 2020. I had never heard of the plant before Mandy brought it to my attention. I knew immediately that I really wanted it after seeing the very strange flowers! Here is a link to April’s wonderful site where she sells an incredible number of Hoyas. I really want her to succeed so if you are looking for rare Hoyas check her out! https://unsolicitedplanttalks.com/

First let me say that this plant was discovered way back in the early 1900s, but was only moved to the Hoya genus in March of 2020. The plant was originally called Anatropanthus borneensis. Extensive study and DNA analysis was done to determine that it was indeed a Hoya.