One of the odd things that I noticed about growing this plant was that when a new set of leaves come in they are so pale as to be almost white. It made me think that I had a severe case of chlorosis, but within a few weeks the leaves would gradually turn dark green. I didn’t take photos of this phenomenon, because at the time, I believed the plant was sick. You can sort of see the leaf in this photo looking chlorotic behind the buds.
I received a well rooted four leaf specimen that arrived growing in Pon. I knew that I was not going to continue using this as a substrate as I have had terrible luck using this stuff in the past. After a month, I transitioned it over to mostly coconut husk chips with a little pumice thrown in. It was up-potted to a 4 inch clear orchid pot so I could keep close tabs on the roots. Below the almost ready to open buds of Hoya surisana:
I first tried to grow what I thought was Hoya surisana in 2023 only to find out that I received an incorrectly labeled plant. It turned out to be a very weak clone of H. campanulata. The very kind grower from Florida sent me the real H. surisana in May of this year.
Hoya surisana has very unusual flowers with long calyx lobes that extend beyond the corolla lobes. I have only experienced this in one other Hoya that I have personally grown and that is H. thailandica. Hoya surisana on top and Hoya thailandica on the bottom:
Hoya surisana was named after Surisa Somadee, Thai Hoya expert and grower. Below the flowers of Hoya surisana:
Hoya surisana was found growing in a pine forest on a steep slope. It was rooted in the ground with long vines ascending the trees nearby.
Hoya surisana was first vouchered in cultivation in August of 2019 at the Bogor Botanic Garden. It was first collected by Andarias Sambokaraeng in Indonesia, Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, Mamasa, Pebassian, Makalangkan mountain, ca 500 m elevation. Below the buds of Hoya surisana:
My Hoya Bella Anneke Buis, otherwise known as Hoya Bella Albomarginata looks pretty healthy from this picture, but has been dropping quite a few leaves for some time. Many leaves started to get shriveled looking, which is a sure sign off root rot. I took it out of the pot, and sure enough that was what was going on. I lose very few plants to root rot these days, but sadly this was one of them. Here is a photo before I chopped it up into cuttings to restart it.
I would estimate that 90% of the time Hoya patella has only one flower per peduncle, but occasionally it gets two. This is one of those times.
I think that I have featured these two together before, but here is a new photo of the two plants flowering at the same time. It doesn’t get much better than this!
