Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Bad News, 1 by upanatemat3am

upanatemat3am wrote:
Carol and all you folks who appear to be confused on this or any other species are still trying to do the impossible by trying to identify the different species by the leaves. The foliage can, and should only be used as a guideline, not an absolute identifying characteristic. What you have here in this photo Carol, is two cuttings of the same plant. It's the species that I know as H. villosa. I also have another very similar plant that I know as H. globulosa. The H. globulosa did not come from the Himalayan mountains as seems to be inferred but was discovered by J.D. Hooker f. in India and Burma, in the foothills and valleys at the base of the Himalaya's. These valleys where these plants came from are not really what could be considered cold. The temperatures run in the 60 to 70 degree mark during the day and drop into the 40's at night. The plant that I have had for the past 18 years as globulosa has never bloomed and is not terribly happy in my greenhouse during the summer when temperatures can get 80, 90 or more but love it outside because our nighttime temperatures almost always drop into the 40's at night even during the summer. When I have to bring them in for the winter they become quite unhappy. I have left them out a few times to see what would happen and at 38 degrees they begin to die, at 35 degrees they are completely dead.
H. villosa on the other hand was discovered in Viet Nam by J. costantin and would naturally be more agreeable to warmer temperatures. I have only had this plant for a little over 2 years but it now has peduncles coming and it has been in my nice warm greenhouse the whole time. As all who have observed it, it is truly one of the most beautiful leaves in the hoya genus. Both of the plants with these names have been legally published in Latin with descriptions but as far as I know, there has never been any herbarium sheets found to back up their validity. Since herbarium sheets are supposed to be composed of both foliage and flowers, if no sheets were ever found to study the flower parts, I can't imagine how anyone could determine whether the plants we have are the plants under discussion or not. I'm going to post photos of both plants, and let the "chips fall where they may"
The first plant is the one I know as H. globulosa