You may wonder "What is Hoya?" Hoya is the Latin name for wax plant. The common hoyas are Hoya carnosa and Hoya bella.
Usually you can find some other hoyas in the flower shops, such as Hoya lacunosa, Hoya linearis and Hoya multiflora, but as in any other genus there are many different species.
Hoya belongs to the Asclepiad (Milkweed) family. So do Stephanotis floribunda, Ceropegia linearis var. wóodii and Stapelia grandiflora to mention a few.
Hoyas grows wild in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia and Polynesia. The Philippines and New Guinea seem to be the places where the most species grow. Nobody knows for sure, how many species there really are. There are approximately 200. There is much confusion about names, because species have been given labels by many different collectors and vendors. A Hoya can have only one name. That name is the first validly published name, however hoyas in commerce are found with many different names on their labels. Many different names for a single species are also found in vendors' catalogs.Why is this? There is confusion about names because collectors and vendors guess as to the identities of the plants they collect or sell, and they often guess wrong.
Many vendors list hoyas by numbers, instead of names. Some of these numbers have prefix letters added such as CMB, DS, DH, F, IML, Perpich, PNG, PT, USDA, WMZ, etc. All should have prefixes to identify the source of the numbers because different sources sometime use the same numbers. This results in different unidentified species being circulated with the same number. When you see these prefixes before a number in a vendor catalog, without any name attached, all it means is that the plant is unidentified. Keep that number and prefix attached to your plant and refer to the same vendor's future catalogs. When a correct name is found, you may find it listed there.
Many vendors label their unidentified species by an incorrect name, with "sp". in front of it, i.e., "H. sp. rubida" This does not mean (as many think) that this is the true species named rubida. It means "This is an unidentified plant".
Another way that vendors list unidentified species is by collection
location names, i.e., "H. sp. Chien Mai." There is no Hoya chieng mai so the
upper cased C and M is a clue that the place name was used. What it means is, "This
is an unidentified species, collecting at a place named Chien Mai. The preferable way to
write that would be, "Hoya sp. from Chieng Mai."
Examples : Hoya IML 37 and Hoya sp. from Ceram (the red one on top, the yellow one is Hoya
obscura)
Now to the subject The Swedish Hoya Society. We are a
non-profit-making-association that started in April 1994. Today we have almost 300 members
all over Scandinavia.
We have a magazine that comes out 4 times per year, and it is called
"HOYATELEGRAFEN"
In the magazine you can read about Hoya and other Asclepiadaceae. We have a barters/buyers exchange, where you can obtain unusual Hoya species. We usually meet once a year to exchange experiences and cuttings with one another.
To become a member you only have to pay 150:-skr on our postal giro service 193339-9.
None-Swedish applicants write first to check the price!
Hoya greetings from the founder and president of the Swedish Hoya Society.
Eva-Karin Wiberg
Thenstedtsgatan 14
S-784 30 Borlange
SWEDEN
Email me here!
