Hoya 'Snowball' ???

The plant I have as H. carnosa 'Snowball', from Bob Smoley's, is maybe not the plant I thought it was. The cultivar 'Snowball' has been around since the 1960s, and is usually described as having pink flowers. An authority who remembers that plant tells me that the plant I have, pictured here, doesn't match the older 'Snowball'.
I am wondering if I haven't either gotten a mislabeled plant from Smoley's (it happens) or have mislabeled the plant myself at some point. I've had it for seven years, and it has done a bit of traveling to friends homes and come back. Maybe I am misremembering which plant I have here?
Could any here who have ordered this cultivar from Smoley's tell me if it matches their plant? I wonder could this be what Smoley's is selling as H. motoskei?

I had always heard that 'Snowball' had pink flowers...that's why I think you have H. motoskei. Do you want some flowers to compare?

Mine motoskei is blooming right now if you want to take some samples for your microscope, Mark. You know where I live :)

I bought a cutting of H. motoskei from Smoley in November 2007. My cutting has plain green leaves, no speckles on it. Wonder what it is. I'll have to wait for flowers. Very interesting. I love the leaves on yours. Flowers too!

How beautiful Mark! my H. motoskei has the leaves with speckles like yours, but no flowers yet.

Mark, that is a beautiful plant evebn without the flowers!
Jan

Eileen, what is the shape of the leaves on your motoskei from Smoley's ? There are a couple of clones of motoskei in circulation, I think. The most common one seems to have roundish leaves, not like the egg-shapped, pointed leaves on the plant I have. I'm pretty sure my plant came from Smoley's, and I am trying to figure out what they have it labeled as.
Lourdes, are your speckled motoskei leaves the same shape as mine?
Julia, I would love to photograph your plant and dissect the flowers. Did yours come from Carol?
Carol, if Julia has a different clone from the one(s) you have, I would like some flowers from you too.
Thanks, everyone!

Mark, some leaves have the shape of yours not as bright, but that could be the light-- some really different, same branch of the plant .

Lourdes,
Those are some really cool leaves - are there many of those "silvery" ones on your motoskei? Mine (which is from Carol) has leaves that are more like the rounder leaves on your plant.

Mark,
Gorgeous plant. Your flowers do look like motoskei - I'd love to know what you end up finding. I have 2 motoskei plants - one from Carol and one that I got from Ebay (from what's his name..the one who sells under SpecialEdition1). The one from Ebay is really speckled (looks more like snowball..I'll post pics later. Anyway, I was also wondering if motoskei is known for the pubescence on the undersides of the leaves?

Julia,
Is Mark's the same one I got from you in the recent swap? If so, I'm looking forward to the results of this!

Gabi

Thank you Gabi!

Actually, I have more "silvery" thank round leaves. When I first got it, I had more round leaves, I got mine from Carol too. At first I though it was two plants, but as I said, same branch, so I have no idea why this happened, but I like it.

Looking forward to see your pictures.
Lourdes =)

The flecking on leaves will not nec. stay constant...is what I have found...especially with the carnosa 'gaggle'....and shapes of leaves can change a bit too....as will thickness and all that. I really think that this group and all the cultivars have been around for so long that there are seedlings running around in them....which some growers would not think to name differently than the parent!!!! Will send you some flowers, Mark .... and a cutting!

Hi Mark - yes, mine came from Carol...and you're welcome to it....

and yes, Gabi, I gave you a piece of Mark's...it's a small hoya world after all.

Julia

Thanks Carol, I'd appreciate it. Do you have the plant I have here? If not, we can trade.

Mark, here is a picture of my motoskei.
The leaves are varied on this plant. A few look almost like krinkle 8, and a few others have very slight markings. I can't wait to see the flowers.

Ok, still learning here. Are there more than one H. motoskei? I see in PF: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/57674/ it says flowers can be pale pink, red, white/near white.

I think Nan gave me a cutting of one labeled H. motoskei in my very first trade here on DG. I need to look around tomorrow and see if it's still here. I had totally forgotten about that one until seeing the name here in this thread.

If a Hoya is a species Hoya....LIKE H. motoskei...there is only ONE species with that name. Flowers, however, can vary in color...

There can be different clones of the same species. I was mistaken in my prior post to speak of cultivars....

Oh, Thank you Carol. It all gets so confusing to me. Don't know why I didn't realize a particular hoya could have different color blooms just like other plants. Duh! Don't mind me.

Ok, now about clones ^_^ So, am I understanding this right, when I see all these H. australis " - - - " so and so, with different names, are they all clones? I have a couple that were given to me that are labeled just H. australis. None have bloomed yet so hopefully when I get blooms some day I will be able to correctly ID them so I can properly label each one.

Hope you all don't mind so many questions that probably seem so easy to some of you.

Lin,

I think what you're describing is "cultivars". So for example, H. pubicalyx "Red Buttons" (also known as H. pubicalyx cv. Red Buttons) is a cultivar. All those quotes next to a species means it's a cultivar. But a clone is just a different variation (I don't know if I'm describing this too well) of a certain species - such as the plain H. carnosa.

If I described anything wrong, I apologize - and hopefully someone will correct me!

Gabi

Gabi...you are right, I think. But I think that Lin is asking about all the varieties of H. australis. OK...The bottom line is that they are all H. australis. Pure and simple....and this is determined by the uniformity of certain aspects of all the plants. HOWEVER...there are various subspecies... tenuipes, australis, rupicola etc. AND, LIKE H. carnosas and H. pubicalyxes there are seedlings distributyed (Ms. G, Kapoho) so it is difficult to differentiate sometimes. David Liddle says that in the end, they are all H. australis and that is the species. The others are various variations.... It is an exercise in futility (I think) to break our heads over which one... If you get one labeled var or ssp. rupicola or orimacola or ssp. australis keep the label...if you just have H. australis on the label...that is good too. There are ways to tell them apart...but many of those ways are cloudy with the introduction of so many seedlings into commerce.

For instance...H. acuta, H. lobbii, H. verticillata, H. pottsii...etc. - they all have many different 'clones'... DL told me once that he walked for miles in the bush and kept finding H. verticillata (acuta?) with slightly different markers...but they were all that species.

Lourdes and Eileen, looks like we MAY have the same plant. Where did you guys get yours from?
For the meantime, I am going to label this plant H. carnosa (motoskei) cv. MR-1. Not to take credit for it in any way, but Smoley's are not forthcoming with details on where they got it, or even which plant this is that they sell. I think it is their "motoskei", which is apparently a synonym for Hoya carnosa, so all motoskeis are actually a variant of H.carnosa. (One with larger, whiter flowers). It seems safe to say it is some sort of carnosa, but whether it is a collection from the wild, a mutation, a seedling or a hybrid, who knows?
Julia, Mel and Gabi have this plant originally from cuttings from my plant. Regardless of what you call it, it apparently is not the original cultivar 'Snowball'.

Mark, I got mine from Smoley's. It was a cutting labeled H. motoskei. I only have it a few months. It will be quite a while before it blooms.

Somewhere in the back of my lizard brain, i remember CMB saying that H. motoskei is the ORIGINAL H. carnosa Brown. ????????????????

I remember reading that somewhere...now where is it ??
Got it !

Does this help at all ??....

http://www.psthehoyan.com/psthehoyan4_4.htm

Paula

I've read that too, a couple of times just since joining DG and becoming interested in Hoyas. Here's one spot where I saw it: http://www.gardinonursery.com/product_info.php?products_id=662

and here: http://www.hoyor.net/en/showspecies.php?id=211

Sure is a pretty one. The cutting labeled H. motoskei I got in trade from Nan here on DG, I think I remember her telling me that the "mom" plant has been in her family for 50 years or more.

Ok, here are the pics I said I'd post.
This one is my motoskei from Carol. It was taken last year - so much more growth is on it now, with more peduncles!! I love this plant.

...And the blooms

And here's the plant that I got from Ebay (Specialedition1) - it was labed H. motoskei but someone saw a pic of it (I forget who) and said it was just a clone of H. carnosa. The undersides of the leaves aren't pubescent like the motoskei I have from Carol. Sorry the pic is blurry - I can take a better one later if anyone wants. What do you guys think it is?

Gabi, that last one looks a lot like my plant, especially the heavily flecked leaves. Maybe when it blooms it will prove to be the same.

Sorry so late Mark, I didn't see your question before.
I got mine from Carol.

Here's the final verdict, as I see it, for my plant.
It is Hoya carnosa, and this clone looks very much like the early botanical illustrations.
Most people will have this labeled as Hoya motoskei, which is not technically correct, but it is the name that will be most widely recognized, and it is a synonym to H. carnosa, so I see no real harm in calling it H. motoskei.

It's a beautiful Hoya!! I envy you!

A little hint for those who are confused by "clone". Clone does not equal species. A species is a large group of genetically related individuals who breed together. ie people, cats, etc. Think of clones as siblings! Every Hoya (or any other plant) seed is potentially a new clone. Without getting TOO complicated, every child from the same parents is a different clone. Unlike with people, we can easily make more copies of a particular clone by taking cuttings. This is where cultivars come from. Just as humans differ from each other, so do all of the individual members of a plant species. Take H. pubicalyx for example. All of the different cultivars 'Red Buttons' 'Bright One' etc ARE H pubicalyx, but all of the 'Red Buttons' are a single clone of H. pubicalyx which someone thought was good looking enough to warrant a name of its own. All of the 'Red Buttons' are genetically identical and it can only be propagated from cuttings or tissue culture.

If you get a seed pod on 'Red Buttons' and grow the seed from it NONE of them will be 'Red Buttons' but they WILL be H. pubicalyx. If you grow seedlings of any plant, not just Hoyas, you will see these differences. Some species have individuals where the differences are very slight, others vary greatly. Some plants will be runty, some will grow well, some will have bigger leaves than others and so on. It is VERY irresponsible to distribute nondescript seedlings. If it is good enough to distribute, it is good enough to have a name. If you can't tell it apart from what is already out there, don't send it out into the world to confuse legions of future gardeners!

Of course, out in the wild, the Hoyas don't care, they are out there setting seeds and making up new genetic combinations all the time. This is where David Liddle and others like him find new clones for all of us to grow.

Well, that is my 2c worth for the day,

Ciao, KK.

Well said!