My Hoya has a runner that has creamy leaves, no green. Will it survive?
Jan in Central Illinois
Is this unusal for a Hoya?
Jan,
I have one that does the same thing and eventually it seems that all of the vine that is white does die off. It has started doing this again and the new white runner is almost 2 ft long. Longer than it has ever been so maybe this time it will make it.
The stem is red and all of the leaves are creamy white with no green at all in them.
dmichael
dmichael,
Thats the way this one is too, red stem with creamy white leaves. It's been this way quite a while. Will be interesting to see what it does.
Jan
I have one that's been like that for a couple of years - the white runner is tinged with a little bit of rose on the edges of the leaves and never got any longer after its initial growth. I like it with the other colors, just a little bit more variety
Jackie
I heard somewhere that you should cut those vines off, but can't remember why.
I've also got a variegated hindu rope that is now producing a vine of banana yellow leaves and another part of it has a set of leaves that are pink and yellow splotched.
I've also heard why you should remove these off colored vines but cant recall why. I want to allow mine to become long enough for me to remove it safely from the mother plant so I can try to root it. I'd like to see if it will continue to grow like that and make an entire plant f those red vines and creamy leaves or if it will revert back to the old plant from which it came.
dmichael
I think I read somewhere that the white leaves don't photosynthesize, so they take resources from the plant but can't contribute. I think Aloha Hoyas (Carol?) said they don't root either - again, I'm kind of hazy on the details so I could be wrong.
I don't think the white vine could survive on it's own. It needs some green to photosynthesize. I've also heard that leaving it on will make the plant strain to try to maintain the all white leaves. I had a Krimson Queen that produced one, but the vine didn't live very long.
I know that when Hosta produce a plant that is light colored like these are, that they don't live very long because they can't photosythesize & get enough nurishment & will eventually die. On seedlings that come up that way they call them fatal yellow. I thought maybe Hoya might be different.
Jan
David, I think I asked Chris about rooting a vine on my pubicalyx that had some interesting traits that the rest of the plant did not have, and she said the resulting plant would be no different than the mother plant.
Very cool looking. I have some white leaves on my carnoa 'KQ', but not a long vine like that, just little bunches of white leaves here and there. I keep my leaves on, and they've been alive for years. I also read somewhere that you should cut it off. But someone on another forum decided to keep them on and had blooms from the "white" part of the plant.
Gabi
exceptions to every rule, right?
The hoya that I have that is doing this is a carnosa andit has been producing white/creamyl eaves since i've had it. I have treid several times to root it but have not managed to do so yet.
Usually the mother plant only makes a half a foot or so of this off colored vine before it begins to die off. This time it has made a much longer vine with all white leaves and is still growing.
I did notice today that 2 of the leaves have just a very tiny bit of green on them and I also noticed that the vine is solid red except for one thin lilne of green running down the top of it.
dmichael
You can see from this pic just how long the vine is
As you can see I have removed this off colored piece from the mother plant and was able to do so with a piece of the main stem intact and it does have some little white root nubs on it. I potted it up and now we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Since there is a very small amount of green in the stem and on 2 of the leaves maybe it'll root and continue to grow,if not nothing is lost but it would be interesting to see an all white hoya.
dmichael
I am guessing it is the carnosa "Tricolor" or Krimson Queen?
This plant was given to me by a friend when she was moving to Wisc. because she didn't have room for it. As you can see by the leaves on the mother plant, it is a varigated Carmosa, I believe. She didn't know but I think that's what it is. If I'm wrong, someone please chime in here & let me know. I'm going to let it grow as I have 2 other Carmosas, they both have dark green leaves with white flecks on them & one has some varigation on some of the vines. They are at least 10+ years old.
Jan
yes, Jan, it is a variegated car"N"osa (not car"M"osa), also called "Tricolor" and Krimson Queen. It looks very healthy, I'd leave the white-leafed vine on it, I think they add alot of charactor and beauty to the plant. If your others are 10+ years, you should see some flowers soon.
I posted on another thread, one of them is producing a burgandy flower.
Jan
I think that is the flower we were discussing because it looks like the one on my plant before it bloomed. Take a picture when it opens!
I probably won't be able to take a pic of it when it opens, as I'm leaving for Alaska Sat. & I don't think it'll be open by then.
sorry
it might be open or at least starting