I’ve been lusting over this Hoya for some time, and it took a couple of tries to obtain one that lived.   I first ordered it from Epiphytica in Thailand a year ago and it was essentially dead on arrival.   This year I ordered two cuttings, one with a pink corona and one with a yellow corona, from AleaGarden.  The yellow one survived the journey, the pink one did not.  Amazingly after only a couple of months the plant produced a peduncle with a bud. Hoya mappigera flowers open only in the dark and last but a short while.  I got up three nights trying to get photos of this flower opening and was only partially successful.   When it did open, it did not open all of the way.

Hoya mappigera has been found in five locations in Malaysia and one place in Thailand but is suspected to be more wide spread. Never has a name fit a Hoya so well.  Here is a quote that I took from a Google translation from a Russian Hoya Catalog: “The name «mappigera» (mappa = cloth, -ger = to carry), refers to the morphology of the corolla, white and wide, resembling a napkin hanging from the stem. In instances herbarium wide corolla folds around the crown as the cloth hiding the diagnostic features of this taxon.”

Hoya mappigera is not an easy Hoya to cultivate.  I quickly rotted the roots off from my small plant and have had to restart it in semi-hydro.  I strongly recommend this method of growing when it comes to it and its near relative H. sammannaniana – Deep Bell (EPC 883).