I chopped up all of my Hoya Bella seedlings plants into cuttings and restarted them. I discovered that the one I called Blondie reverted to green when it rooted. I believe that the reason that it was the blonde color was because the pot it was in was too large and it was habitually over watered. Some of the plants still have very narrow leaves, making me wonder if it got crossed with something else like engleriana when it was hanging outside that summer.

It has been a number of years in which I have wanted to flower this Hoya, and knock on wood, I think that it will finally happen. Behold the buds of Hoya gildingii!

Today I end my discussion of Hoya rintzii. It is a Hoya best left to those with very warm outside conditions in Florida or the tropics. It could also be grown by those that have very warm, humid grow tents in the house. For those of us in the cold north, it is a Hoya best steered away from unless you want to torture yourself.

Here are a couple of flower close-ups of Hoya rintzii. I knew that I would not have this one for long so I took special care in getting many photos of the blooms.

Here is a photo of Hoya rintzii, at its best before it went downhill over the winter and I lost it.

Hoya rintzii lives in the tree canopy in the lowlands along rivers seldom at elevations above 500 meters. These lowland species are known to like it really warm and make pretty poor houseplants unless you live in the tropics and don’t use your air conditioning.

Hoya rintzii is one of three Hoyas in the Mindorensis Complex of Hoyas in Borneo. Its leaves are much bigger than the other two: Hoya mindorensis and Hoya elmeri. Also, its flower ball is smaller than on the other two.

Hoya rintzii is named after R.E. Rintz who studied Hoyas in Peninsular Malaysia. He had previously identified it as H. erythrostemma, which is native to Thailand.

The buds opened one morning and were very similar to Hoya erythrostemma to my eyes and were quite beautiful.

I was thrilled one day to see the first signs of a peduncle, which held on and budded up in short order.