Okay, I need to get this straight, if you have a hoya sp. phillipenes. What does this mean. What does affinis mean? I know the sp. means species. But what does all of this really mean. Need help please.
Heather
aff. sp. syn, confused
Heather, affinis is, I believe, latin for "like". It is put on the names of plants you have acquired that look "like" a well defined species, but that you aren't entirely sure of the identity of. For instance, if you bought a plant from a dealer that was labeled "Hoya mosaica" as someone on this forum did recently, but knew that there was no published Hoya mosaica, and believed that the leaves looked exactly like Hoya polynuera, you might change the label to "Hoya affinis polynuera", keeping track of the original label for future reference. If the plant blooms and you can identify it with great probability as polynuera, you could change the label to that, i suppose. I don't know the exact rules for when you could change it, if there even are any. Don't quote me! I'm an amatuer!. Affinis is often abreviated by dealers as aff. For instance "Hoya aff. fraterna". I think that sp. means "unidentified species"? Not sure.
Oh, I forgot, syn. means synonym and is used to denote other names a species might go by. Sometimes syn.s are obsolete names, which were ruled invalid and the species renamed, or sometimes the name itself is in question, and the syn. will be an alternate name. Publishing species (describing them minutely in Latin makes them officialy published) can be highly contentious, and people will fight over varying viewpoints for years. Hoya BSI-1 is in dispute. Ted Green lists it as subcalva. You could say "Hoya BSI-1 (syn. subcalva)". This one particularly irritates me, since I go by the source that says BSI-1, but don't you love the name subcalva? It sounds so scientific and dorky, you sort of have to.
Mark...you are right on! Unless a name has a cv. (cultivar) after the species, it means, generally that it is a species. The aff. (affinis - close to) is often used for a species that hasn't had the rigorous examinations done to it...but, by all intents and purposes it is ' very close to' XYZ. Sometime the term CFW (Compares Favorably With) is used.... Yes, it is a bit of a waffle, but it's important to keep it there.
H. sp. Philippines, H. sp. Sulawesi etc. mean that the hoya is a species hoya (not a cultivar) and that no determination as to ID has been made. It is usually given the name where it is found....
Now, syn. is used randomly and often. For instance....I believe that H. vitellinoides is a valid publication and that H. meredithii is not...so I would write it; H. vitellinoides (syn. H. meredithii). This gives other collectors a clue and they can say..."OH, I know what that is, OH, I have it by H. meredithii).
Hope this helps...Mark...you had it right...I just feel like talking!!!! :>)
Okay, good good, now one more quickie. So if it has cv. that means it has been identified. If it says species, that means it is a certain kind of hoya, but not sure what the cultivar is?
Thanks-Heather
Not exactly, Heather. cv. Jennifer, for instance means that it IS a cultivar, NOT a species, and that it has been named Jennifer.
H. sp. Sulawesi means that it is NOT a cultivar and it IS a species which has not been ID'd but that it comes from Sulawesi. Many of David Liddles unidentified hoyas are named, for instance, H. sp. IML1234. Cultivars and Species are two entirely different meanings.
Does that help?
Ohhhh, so if you buy a H. sp Sulawesi, it could actually be an incurvula. Just not published yet. ssp. means subspecies. Which would mean, what? This is starting to make sense to me!
Heather
Uh oh.... My brain just did a monumental "HUH??" I gotta go ponder all this.
:-[
Barb
Hmmmm. No.
H. sp. Sulawesi means that:
l. the hoya is different from any other in circulation as far as can be told
2. No thorough search has been done yet through all of the publications to determine what it is
3. No one has published it.
Remember, the jungles are full of NO ID'd plants.
cv. means that the creation of this hoya happened in "cultivation"...it was man made or spontaneous in a manmade invironment. Until it is published as a cultivar with a name, it is known by the cross: H. archboldiana X H. onychoides.
If given the moniker, ssp. or subsp. (same thing) it means that the hoya was
1. found in the wild
2. has been deted and determined to be very similar to another species but just different enough not to be considered the SAME, and to be a subsp. (cousin?). Look at all of the H. australis, lacunosa....prime examples.
Clearer?
Yes, definitely! I have been going over very long ago threads to try to understand this better. Norma and you had some really good discussions on it. Thanks as always for taking the time to help a lost hoya addict. Markroy included in my gratefulness!
Heather