Hoya serpens - Shooting Star Wax Flower

Shooting Star Wax Flower is a very slender stemmed creeper, rooting freely at nodes, stem shortly velvet-hairyto sparsely so, sparsely minutely papillose. Leaves are nearly round, ovate or very broadly elliptic, 8-19 x 7-17mm, tip rounded, base rounded to subordate, fleshy about 3 mm thick, upper surface minutely paphairy and shortly velvet-hairy, lower surface less so, nearly stalkless; leaf-stalk 0-6mm long, densely velvet-hairy. Flowers are borne in many flowered hemispherical umbels. Flower-cluster-stalks are 2-5.5 cm long. Flower-stalks are 1.5-2.4 cm, slender, green sometimes tinged purple. Sepals are ovate 2 x 1.5mm. Flowers are hairless outside, densely white velvet-hairy inside, tube 5-6 mm long, widely bell-shaped to almost flat; petals ovate oblong 5-6 x 5mm, spreading to slightly recurved. Coronal scales are very fleshy, horizontally star-shapedly spreading, ovate in outline 4 x 2.5 mm, with small tube near anther tip. Follicles are very slender, 11 x 0.4cm, hairless, in divaricate to slightly recurved pairs. Shooting Star Wax Flower is found in E-Himalayas, from Nepal to Darjeeling, Bhutan, Sikkim, at altitudes of 1400-1700 m. Flowering: May-June.