I received my 'rooted/potted cuttings' of a lacunosa in the mail yesterday from an Etsy seller. The weather was fairly hot during the 3 day shipping from california to me in ny, and the plant looked ok but was pretty exhausted. The 4" pot of what looks like potting soil with perlite mix was quite dry, and many leaves and branches were wilted but didn't look serious.
Despite the instructions to NOT water for two or three days after arrival, I made an executive decision and watered the poor thing yesterday when it arrived. Gave it a good soak and a good draining. Today it does look a bit more perky though some branches and leaves are still kind of wilty. I think it will be fine, the soil is staying damp and it has lots of drainage. I won't water again for a while, nor will I disturb it by repotting for another week or two.
I suspect this 'plant' is several rooted cuttings and that some have better developed roots than others- hence the couple of wilted branches while other branches are drinking up better.
Overall, the hoya looks nice, full, and I' sure it will perk up well over the next two weeks.

What I find curious is the great variety of leaf types one sees when looking for "hoya lacunosa leaves" online. I thought it was largely a similar look no matter what cultivar of lacunosa? Yet you see heart shaped leaves, thick dimpled, long thin, and also what I'd call 'standard' leaf shape like mine, with a tendency to be slightly dimpled or not perfectly smooth.

What surprised me right away however is that the leaves on this are SO small... about 1/3 the length of my wayetii, and 1/4 the length of my pubicalixes, and much smaller than my sp. aff Burtoniae. The leaves are average about 1 1/2" long, not counting their stems. Is this normal? Do my photos show a normal Lacunosa, and if so any thoughts on what 'type' it might be?

It's Wax Plant (Hoya lacunosa) but by type, do you mean can someone identify the particular cultivar name? I don't know how it's possible to identify a cultivar if the plant didn't have a name attached to it at time of purchase. There are a few different named cultivars of species lacunosa: https://garden.org/plants/sear... but if a grower/seller does not have a cultivar name attached to the plant, it's just Hoya lacunosa.

H. lacunosa cultivars can have leaves lightly splashed with silver, like 'Sno Caps', or heavily splashed with silver like 'Eskimo'


Royal Flush' can have purplish leaves, while 'Ruby Sue' has bright red coloration


'Tove Pink' has a slight pink tinge to the blooms.

Thank you Lin! I will ask the seller if they know the specific variety, but I don't have high hopes there, as they are just a home business.
The leaves are solid green, with a texture not as perfectly smooth and shiny as my other hoyas. Thin leaves in comparison. It is dropping some leaves here and there. I'll keep it in a serene setting to recover, bright light but no sun. It may well have suffered from heat in transit.
I'm excited though!

The texture of mine is a little different than yours.



Mine came from Violet Barn a couple of years ago.

Yeah Peggy yours has leaves that are much wider than mine.

The Etsy seller responded with the following, so I don't think she really knows that much about it specifically:
"Hi, i believe their other names is Cinnamon Hoya since there flower scent smell like cinnamon."
Mine must be just a plain old 'lacunosa lacunosa'.

Omie, your lacunosa looks exactly like mine. I would guess its Peggy's plant with the wrong name.

There are more than one leaf variations of Lacunosa. Violet Barn didn't specify a cultivar, just called it Lacunosa. I think mine looks a little like Kroniana but I also have "Rebecca" which is a cross of Obscura and Lacunosa. The leaves are similar to my Lacunosa except for the fact they turn reddish in high light like Obscura. Here's a pic of "Rebecca."

Oops. Didn't have a pic of "Rebecca on my computer. Here she is.

My lacunosa seems to have leaves that are very small, pointed (not heart shaped), paper thin, and slightly wavy with a very slight bumpiness to their surface. When looking at the leaves through the light, you can see the veins as darker, They are totally green. Mine does not look at all like Rebecca, Rosita, or Sunrise.

My 4" pot lacunosa 'plant' (which I suspect was several pretty recent cuttings potted together before they had strong roots) spent its first week drooping quite a bit and also dropping more than a dozen leaves which turned yellow first.
It seemed quite stressed from its journey to me, during which it totally dried. I did not repot it, simply kept the soil moist.
Now is day ten, and over the past 3 days leaves stopped yellowing and dropping, and all the stems and remaining green leaves are perking up. Whew!
Definitely looking MUCH better today and I'm confident it'll do well now. 😺

Lacunosa is pretty sturdy. I adore this plant.

It did drop 6 more yellowed limp leaves today. Doesn't seem very sturdy compared to my other 6 hoyas. Not seeing any pests. Have not unpotted it to check the roots- thought leave well enough alone since it obviously had travel trauma.
Good news is that a lot more leaves are perked up now than last week.

good luck.

Omie - I have a lacanosa that looks just like yours and Magpie26's first plant picture. The leaves are very small, smaller than yours in fact, but maybe that's because it is in intensely bright light and doesn't need all the leaf surface to produce food, but the fragrance from the blooms is amazing! It is always in bloom, and the night and early morning fragrance literally fills up my yard, and I'm in Eastern PA. I did find that this plant likes to stay moist. It resides in a small hobby GH and it gets watered every day. Sometimes 2x per day, and misted daily. The soil drains quick so no fear of over watering. Did I mention the fragrance?! You are going to love it when it blooms. Best of luck to you and your plant.

Mugsie thank you. It's reassuring to know that it like it damp. I suspect it just got way to hot and dry on its journey from CA to NY. It was quite wilted and dry when it arrived, and the yellowing/dropping leaves thing. It's def stabilizing now.
It makes sense that a hoya with very thin leaves like this one would not be able to hold without water as well as thick succulent type leaved hoyas.
When I put this one into it's longterm pot soon, I'll be sure to add a little extra potting soil to my hoya mix proportions.

I've resisted the urge to repot this lacunosa because it had suffered from drying out completely during its shipment to me. But now it's been a month and it has slowly lost more than 1/3 of its leaves, and some of the thinner branches have rotted/wilted off at the soil line.
I'm thinking it does not like the way it was potted by the seller when it was prepared for me. The soil looks like regular potting soil with some perlite in it. The drainage is fine, but I'm suspecting its relatively baby 'cuttings' roots are not able to access enough oxygen in the soil.
Instead of watching it continue to dwindle, I'm going to carefully repot it while it still has some perky branches... into more of a hoya friendly soil with some orchid bark bits and a little more perlite. Then it will either die or start thriving.

A lighter mix that allows good air circulation around the roots will make your Hoya much happier!! I think sometimes nurseries use a more dense, water retentive medium to keeps plants from drying out during shipment and while sitting in garden centers but Hoya roots will suffocate if left without good aeration for very long.

Ok I repotted it. As i suspected, it was a grouping of little cuttings, and they had hardly any roots. The potting soil was dense and fell off in big clumps right away.
I just potted the gathered cuttings into a new same-size 4" pot with fresh hoya-type potting mixture, much airier and chunkier. Time will tell now:

Looking good, I'm sure it will take off in no time if given warmth and bright light!

My damn cat knocked this lacunosa off the bench today and sent everything out of the pot and scattered all over the floor.
Back to square one on this poor clump of a cutting.