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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I have not revived the Hoya In Focus for sometime. Actually i don't have a time schedule for it, just do it when i feel like so, or when i am inclined to post one again. Usually, i do a species if i have many photos of the plant and flowers, at least with several stages of flower development.

Now i have Hoya benguetensis. This means it came from Benguet, a province in the Cordillera Region in the highlands. Baguio City is maybe the more famous place, and it is from Benguet province. The suffix "ensis" means the species originated from that place.

My first idea is that this plant needs a colder temperature, as it is cold in Benguet being in the highlands. So i placed this plant first under some shades of other plants to at least have a slightly lower temperature. However it didn't flower for two years. It just produced leaves. Above shows the lovely green leaves, with 4 veins attached to the midrib, called quintuplinerve. (I will still verify if my memory is correct)

Then i placed it in the north part of the garden where it received direct sunlight from morning till afternoon. It immediately produced peduncles that eventually turned into lovely red umbels. This plant has 4 umbels that never stopped blooming. After dehiscence, new buds again start to develop. 

The stems are not very much twining, unlike other hoyas. The young shoots just grow in the space nearby without holding on to other stems, resulting in dangling long stems falling to the sides.  From these stems arise the peduncles that bear the buds. 

These are the buds from the topmost photo. Compared to other hoya buds, these are more flattened, with just a very slight protrusion at the tip or center of the bud, which later on becomes the tip of the corolla. 

This shows the slightly opening flowers, which happen at the early afternoon about 2:00pm. I just am not sure if this time is the same in all places. A very prominent distinguishing feature of this species is the dark corona, maroon or fuchsia, with yellow at their centers. 

A very lovely shape of the flowers immediately after all the buds opened. This happens just a few minutes from the start of corolla break. 

A few hours later the flowers reflex to this positions. This was already shot about 6:00pm or 4 hours from start of opening. For most hoyas, the strongest scent was emitted after full opening, together with production of nectar. It signals that they are ready for pollination, attracting the night pollinators like the moths. However, even the ants, spiders, praying mantis, some green fly and other insects are attracted too. In this case, those small black ants partake in the sweet nectar. 

This shows the reflexed corolla of Hoya benguetensis flowers, with the corolla tips even bending backwards.  Am sorry for the blurry photo, but this is what i can find in my files, haven't taken a nicer single flower photo. 

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