What a wonderful series of photos Sue. Those are all very impressive flowers. I think you are right, the heat has caused the less intense colour.

Mike

Sue those are all awesome photos!!!! You have to tell me what you do to get your onychoides and macgillivrayiis to bloom. I have been growing them forever and not a flower to speak of so far,but the plants have made peduncles,some 2 years ago or longer and still no flowers. My archboldianas bloom but often.

david

Thanks Mike,
david:
Here what I do, I did not repot for 3,4 years since a got the cutting, about 3,4" pot. I give them a tps Dynamite fertiliser slow release, twice a year. I do not water often in winter,
have a high light 70%, temperature 65F in winter.
In Mars, I beginning give them Peter blooming booster, water more often, turn off the heat at the end of Mars, that means they have stronger light and warm temperature day time, and cooler at night.
That all I can say, but I think the cooler temperature at night can help them.
Let me know how do you grow them, maybe we can find the way.
sue

Sue, thank you so much for providing this beautiful and illustrative showcase. You have such a talent for telling a story with a series of photographs. Your threads are among my favorites for sure!

I had to smile when you got to the part where archiboldiana 'pink' no longer looked so pink. I hope this is true for mine, too, because I have the 'pink' from Aleya and the Timika, and it would be nice if they bloomed differently like yours. Not that beggars can be choosers!

It sounds like the spring bloom booster strategy works well for everyone who has the discipline to do it. Once my plants are a bit more established, I'm definitely going to take a page out of this book.

Very nice photos! I especially love the comparison photos of H. archboldiana 'YM excellent' and
H. archboldiana 'Pink'. So cool to see the difference in color - and the flowers are breathtaking!

Thanks everyone.
GG, before I was always accept my archbolddiana 'pink' is pink, no question about it, because that the only plant I have. I wonder if anyone have different color, that I'd like to see?
I like 'YM excellent', the buds are more shinning and thicker, like a little candy, as you can see the third picture.

It does look like candy!

I agree it would be great to see what colors other people are getting.

Great blooms Sue! Until I see any of these in person they give me sort of surreal filling, almost fake in they perfect crazy shape! Love the color of "pink", is it really that green?

Yes Angie, exactly color in real world. It can be change a little lighter color if the weather is cooler.
sue

Could anyone explain the meaning of the letters "YM"? Is this an accession abbreviation, like those that are usually followed by numbers (comparable to IML for Iris Marie Liddel or EPC for Epiphytica)?

Edit: I just found a notation on hoyor.net that YM is for York Meredith, but this is all they knew. I am curious why it is given a name or descriptive word, rather than an accession number. Normally, I would think a name indicates a cultivar -- either a hybrid or a unique selection from seedlings.

It is actually an invalid/not accepted name.

The correct name is Hoya archboldiana var. archboldiana. 'YM Excellent' is the only archboldiana that EXACTLY matches C. Norman's original holotype specimen.

As for WHY it was given a name/descriptive title, well, I suspect it's all about the $$.

There are two people (will not name names, but one of them was responsible for incorrectly "naming" and circulating archboldiana var. archboldiana as 'YM Excellent') that are KNOWN for their invalid/incorrect publications. They are partially responsible for the naming mess that the Hoya genus is facing. Many of the species that they published were invalid due to them being already named species, just with different colored blooms. Some of their other publications are invalidated because the plant is NOT a cultivar. And still other publications are not accepted, because the submitted publication already matches the holotype specimen of an already named plant.

The issue is NOT with the invalid publications, themselves. The issue is the two persons responsible for the invalid/not accepted publications started circulating the plants, with their new "names", BEFORE the publications were even validated/invalidated. Then, when the publications came back as invalid/not accepted, these same people would turn around and rename the invalidly named plant whatever they wanted (again), and make bank on it again, because it was being represented as a NEW species/cultivar/variety.

So, now we have this mess of plants out there, in circulation, with invalid/incorrect/not accepted names.

Please, check IPNI, Kew, JSTOR, ISHS, and any other publication site, if you feel you may have an invalidly named species!