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Mountain Wax Flower
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Mountain Wax Flower
P Native Photo: Dipankar Borah
Common name: Mountain Wax Flower
Botanical name: Hoya oreogena    Family: Apocynaceae (Oleander family)
Synonyms: Hoya salweenica, Hoya revolubilis

Mountain Wax Flower is a climber, found growing on trees or occasionally on rocks, with translucent latex in all parts. Flowers are borne in pseudo-umbels, up to 30-flowered. Flower-cluster-stalks are in leaf-axils, 0.5-5 cm long. Flower-stalks are thread-like, 2-4 cm long. Sepals are triangular-ovate 2-3 x 1-1.6 mm. Flowers are pinwheel shaped, white to very pale pink, 1.2-1.6 cm in diam., hairless outside, velvet-hairy inside; tube 5-6 mm long, petals triangular, 4-6 x 4-6.6 mm, tip pointed, margin curled. Corona is star shaped, 6-10 mm diameter, lobes spreading, ovate, 3.5-5 x 1-2 mm, outer process pointed, spreading, inner process tapering, erect. Stems are stout, climbing or dangling, up to 5 m long; branches 2.5-5 mm diameter, velvet-hairy turning hairless when old. Leaf-stalks are 1-1.5 cm long; blade elliptic, oblong to inverted-lanceshaped, 5-20 x 3.5-6 cm, very thick and fleshy when fresh, leathery when dry, base rounded to wedge-shaped, tip pointed, blunt or rounded, lateral veins 5-8 on each side of main vein, barely visible. Seedpods are linear-lanceshaped, 11-13 x 0.7-1 cm. Mountain Wax Flower is found in Arunachal Pradesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, at altitudes of 120-1600 m. Flowering: June-July.

Identification credit: Dipankar Borah Photographed in Papum Pare, Arunachal Pradesh.

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