In Focus: Hoya lucardenasiana

Hoya lucardenasiana has some extra personal significance for me. It is named after my batchmate in college, Lourdes B. Cardenas. We were not really very close then, but you know how it was as college freshmen. I still remember we were P.E. classmates, and once we went to the big city to look for a swimsuit. The bus took us there in more than 2 hrs. We almost got lost, we searched the old Quiapo area and because we cannot see a store selling swimsuits we accidentally found ourselves in Chinatown. A bit scared because most stores speak Chinese, it felt like we were already in China. We tried our best to retrace our way back to where we started. To make the long story short, we were not able to buy our swimsuits.

I forgot what happened next, the scenes in my mind are now lost to oblivion. Sometimes i still see Lou in some project reviews where her study is funded by our office. She doesn't remember it, but i do. And as the past Director of the Natural History Museum in the University of the Philippines Los Baños for a few yearst, this hoya is named after her. Even if we were not very close in college, her namesake at least is very close to me.

newly opened flowers  

A few hours after opening, the corolla already reflexed and nectar 

already oozing from the individual flowers. In temperate countries where 

evaporation is not quick, the nectar form round bubbles on each nectar gland

 It flowers from February to April at the beginning of the dry hot season. 

There are many umbels in a plant at different stages of maturity, 

so you will get blooms in staggered dates. 

 Maybe there are two color forms of this hoya, as i've seen posts where the corolla is darker burgundy, and the corolla even darker. Or probably conditions also affect colors, as is true with other hoya species. Anthocyanins are affected by temperatures, pH and more changes in conditions. 

 This flowers will dehisce in one more day, they fall in 4-5 days. 

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