Hoya lacunosa — Pallidiflora — IML 0045 / H61
Separate a historical botanical name from a cultivation label carrying IML 0045 and H61.
Distinguish Hooker’s historical varietal name, current taxonomic synonymy and a recorded accession label without accepting a subspecies or authenticating living material.
Overview
Pallidiflora appears both in a nineteenth-century botanical treatment and in later cultivation labels. This profile follows the historical checklist entry carrying IML 0045 and H61 while explaining what the older botanical name can, and cannot, tell us about plants carrying that label.
Photo Gallery
No identity-, rights-, and profile-reviewed photographs are available yet.
What We Know
- The historical checklist recorded “Hoya lacunosa ssp. Pallidiflora IML-0045 H61”. The wording is retained as a cultivation label; it is not accepted here as a botanical subspecies.
- Liddle’s January 2009 catalogue lists IML 0045 under Hoya lacunosa var. pallidiflora and describes a narrow-leaved plant with hairy, scented white flowers. This documents the nursery’s label and description in 2009; it does not connect H61 or a living plant to Hooker’s 1861 material.
- Hooker’s 1861 treatment used the rank of variety, Hoya lacunosa var. pallidiflora. He described less conspicuous leaf venation, broader leaf bases and almost colourless flowers, while saying that the plant could not otherwise be distinguished from Blume’s lacunosa.
- Kew currently includes Hoya lacunosa var. pallidiflora in the synonymy of Hoya lacunosa.
- The historical treatment does not connect its illustrated plant with IML 0045 or H61. The checklist supplies the combined label, but does not establish its propagation history or authenticate plants sold under it.
- MyHoyas captions a collection photograph “Hoya lacunosa var. pallidiflora IML 0045”. The caption omits H61. Its visible album update is 11 July 2019, which does not date the accession’s collection or introduction. It documents a label occurrence, not an original accession record or a propagation link.
What We Are Still Learning
What do the original IML 0045 and H61 records document?
What would help: Original accession lists, labels and catalogue entries, including their dates and any explicit cross-reference between the codes. Compare the checklist’s ssp. and H61 wording with the catalogue and album’s var. pallidiflora / IML0045 wording; the album contains no H61 cross-reference.
Can a living plant be traced to the labelled material?
What would help: A documented acquisition and propagation chain. Record gaps instead of filling them from visual resemblance.
How do documented living plants compare with the historical description?
What would help: Identified foliage and flower photographs, measurements and the original labels. A compatible appearance alone does not prove continuity.
Are any distinctive growing requirements demonstrated?
What would help: Qualifying published scientific field observations or controlled cultivation studies of identified material. The 1861 description supplies no modern care protocol.
Common Misconceptions
- Taxonomic synonymy concerns botanical names. It does not demonstrate that every plant sold under one of those names is the same clone.
- The historical use of var. and the later checklist’s ssp. are different rank wordings; neither validates a modern accession label by itself.
- Pale flowers or a matching leaf shape cannot, by themselves, connect a modern plant with Hooker’s illustrated material.
- A nursery’s use of a botanical name documents a label in circulation; it is not a taxonomic revision or a record of continuity with the original illustrated plant.
Research and Sources
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