Kingdom Plantae Family Apocynaceae Scientific name Hoya meliflua | Order Gentianales Genus Hoya Rank Species | |
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Similar Hoya mindorensis, Hoya davidcummingii, Hoya pubicalyx, Hoya cinnamomifolia, Hoya serpens | ||
Hoya meliflua is a species of Hoya vine endemic to the Philippines.
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The vine is common to Apayao, La Union, Rizal, Bataan, Laguna, Mindoro, Palawan, Negros, Panay, and Leyte.
Description
Hoya meliflua has stiff succulent leaves with a very clean look to them with no venation.
The flowers are reddish orange and have nectaries near the base of the central column from which a dark sap is produced that stains very easily. In fact, its name is derived from the word "mellis" meaning honeydew and the word "fluo" meaning flow, referring to the dark nectar of the plant that stains the flowers. The plant flowers in June in the Philippines and each flower cluster comes with 10-20 flowers.
There is also a subspecies, Hoya meliflua ssp. fraterna, that has longer, narrower leaves.
Discovery
Hoya meliflua was first described in 1837 by Francisco Manuel Blanco, who mistakenly identified it as a Stapelia. He called it Stapelia meliflua. Hoya meliflua was originally found on the island of Luzon and so it was given the synonym Hoya luzonica by Rudolf Schlechter in 1905. Elmer Drew Merrill subsequently identified it as a Hoya, not Stapelia, and published it in Sp. Blancoanae 318 (1918) naming it Hoya meliflua.
There are several other synonyms for Hoya meliflua including Hoya carnosa named by Blanco in 1845, Hoya Diversifolia by Fernandez in 1880, and Hoya parasitica by Fernandez in 1880. These synonyms were found to be invalid under Article 53.1 of international nomenclature.
Hoya meliflua is very similar to Hoya fraterna and is sometimes called 'the little fraterna'.
