Today I end my discussion of Hoya rintzii. It is a Hoya best left to those with very warm outside conditions in Florida or the tropics. It could also be grown by those that have very warm, humid grow tents in the house. For those of us in the cold north, it is a Hoya best steered away from unless you want to torture yourself.

Here are a couple of flower close-ups of Hoya rintzii. I knew that I would not have this one for long so I took special care in getting many photos of the blooms.

Here is a photo of Hoya rintzii, at its best before it went downhill over the winter and I lost it.

Hoya rintzii lives in the tree canopy in the lowlands along rivers seldom at elevations above 500 meters. These lowland species are known to like it really warm and make pretty poor houseplants unless you live in the tropics and don’t use your air conditioning.

Hoya rintzii is one of three Hoyas in the Mindorensis Complex of Hoyas in Borneo. Its leaves are much bigger than the other two: Hoya mindorensis and Hoya elmeri. Also, its flower ball is smaller than on the other two.

Hoya rintzii is named after R.E. Rintz who studied Hoyas in Peninsular Malaysia. He had previously identified it as H. erythrostemma, which is native to Thailand.

The buds opened one morning and were very similar to Hoya erythrostemma to my eyes and were quite beautiful.

I was thrilled one day to see the first signs of a peduncle, which held on and budded up in short order.

The second time was the charm with this one, the cutting I took of Hoya rintzii took off and grew this time because I was able to keep it warmer and watered less. I found out that the leaves are highly variable in size as you can see in the photo below.

I knew nothing about this Hoya going in and that was probably a mistake. I found out later that it is in the Mindorensis Hoya complex, and H. mindorensis has always given me nothing but trouble, because I simply cannot give it warm enough temperatures. It was not long after potting up Hoya rintzii that I needed to take cuttings and start it over because of root rot.