Leaves
Hoya leaves vary in size, texture, color and venation. In size, leaves range from as small as 5 mm in length and 2 to 4 mm in width (Hoya engleriana Hosseus) to as large as 25 cm by 35 cm. (Hoya latifolia G. Don). Hoya coriacea Blume, has been reported have leaves as long as two feet in length. There are hoyas with almost perfectly round leaves and others with linear leaves (Hoya linearis Wall. ex. D. Don and Hoya teretifolia Griff. ex Hook. f.). One popular species, Hoya shepherdii Short ex Hook. has leaves that resemble string beans hanging in bunches from their stalks. Hoya linearis Wall. ex D. Don is covered with fine downy hair and resembles masses of Spanish Moss (Tillandsia useneoides) hanging from trees in its native habitat. Some Hoya leaves are smooth and shiny; some are covered with hairs. Some Hoya leaves appear to be veinless while others have very conspicuous veins of a lighter or darker colour than the rest of the leaves as in H. cinnomomifolia. Some have leaves that are mottled with speckles of silvery white (Hoya carnosa R. Br., Hoya pubicalyx). Some hoyas have leaves that are thin and translucent (Hoya coriacea Blume); some are so thick and succulent that they look more like crassulas than hoyas (Hoya australis ssp. rupicola, oramicola and saniae from Australia and Hoya pachyclada from Thailand). One of the most succulent, Hoya kerrii Craib, has valentine heart shaped leaves, with notches at the apexes of the leaves instead of at the bases.
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Famous quotes containing the word leaves:
“The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“There are acacias, a graceful species amusingly devitalized by sentimentality, this kind drooping its leaves with the grace of a young widow bowed in controllable grief, this one obscuring them with a smooth silver as of placid tears. They please, like the minor French novelists of the eighteenth century, by suggesting a universe in which nothing cuts deep.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)