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Asclepiadaceae family

Porcelainflower Hoya carnosa

Porcelainflower is an introduced perennial vine, found in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

More about this plant

Hoya carnosa, the porcelain flower or wax plant, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae, native to East Asia. It is a common house plant grown for its attractive waxy foliage, and sweetly scented flowers. It is grown well in pots and hanging baskets. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Vine / climber layer — Sits in the vine of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host

Recorded feeding on Hoya in North America, including:

Cingilia catenaria · Chain-Dotted Geometer ✦
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0). ✦ = recorded on this exact species.
✦ Bees 1 bee visitor

1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Porcelainflower :

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 1 bird · 14 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Porcelainflower — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 1 bird species (fruit, seed, browse):

Calypte anna · Anna's Hummingbird

14 adult butterfly & moth species are recorded nectaring at its flowers — the most-recorded:

Notocrypta curvifascia Ptychopseustis pallidochrealis Piletocera aegimiusalis Ideopsis similis Bastilla arcuata Calamotropha paludella
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (17) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[15] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[16] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[17] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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