You have been waiting for this bloom for two years. Maybe three. You gave it the right light and the right neglect and you did not cut the peduncle off even though it looked like a dead stick for eighteen months because you knew, you just knew, that was where the flowers would come from. And then one morning you walk into the room and the whole cluster is open and the air smells like honey and there is a small sticky situation developing on the windowsill and you do not even mind because look at it. Just look at it.
The Hoya
Hoyas are native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Australia, where they grow as epiphytes, clinging to tree trunks and branches and absorbing moisture and nutrients from the air and rain around them rather than from the soil below. There are more than 500 known species, each with its own leaf shape and flower color and fragrance profile, and they have been beloved houseplants for long enough that some of the original cultivars introduced in the Victorian era are still in circulation today, passed from windowsill to windowsill across generations.
The flowers bloom in clusters called umbels, tight spherical bouquets of individual star-shaped blooms that can hold up to forty flowers apiece, each one a perfect five petaled star with a smaller five-pointed corona rising from its center. The blooms are waxy and firm, with a porcelain-like surface that catches light the way glazed pottery does, which is why hoyas are sometimes called wax plants or porcelain flowers. Many species are strongly fragrant, releasing their sweetest scent in the evening hours to attract night pollinators, sometimes filling an entire room with something that smells like cookies or vanilla or honey depending on the species.
And then there is the nectar. Hoyas produce nectar with genuine enthusiasm, and some species produce it with such extravagance that growers have been known to bag their bloom clusters to prevent the sweet sticky drips from reaching the furniture below. It is a small price to pay. Anyone who has waited three years for a hoya to bloom for the first time will tell you it is worth every paper towel.
The Piece
A single hoya flower, plucked from the cluster and given a life of its own. Five rounded petals curve gently inward, their surfaces given a fine sandy texture that catches the oxidation and reads as depth and dimension, the center corona raised and detailed with that characteristic hoya star-within-a-star structure. The whole flower is deeply oxidized so the shadows between the petals are rich and dark and the raised edges catch the light.
Hanging below the flower from a simple loop, a small teardrop of vesuvianite glows in deep spring green, slightly lighter and more vivid in sunshine, like a single drop of nectar caught in the moment before it falls. The vesuvianite is that intense saturated green that looks as if the forest distilled itself into a gemstone, which feels exactly right for a tropical plant that spends its whole life reaching toward the light.
The pendant measures approximately 2 inches long and just over 1 inch wide, on an 18 inch sterling silver rope chain.
The Craftsmanship
- Pendant: approximately 2 inches long by just over 1 inch wide
- Stone: vesuvianite teardrop, deep spring green
- Material: sterling silver throughout, oxidized
- Chain: 18 inch sterling silver rope chain
- Edition: one of a kind
One of a Kind
There is only one of this necklace in the world. This flower, this stone, this single bloom held apart from the cluster: they exist once. When it finds its person it will never be made again exactly like this.
A Note from Tamara
I made this for the hoya people. You know who you are. You are the ones who check your peduncles every morning and feel genuine emotion when the buds swell and do not panic when the nectar situation gets slightly out of hand. I took one single flower from the cluster because I wanted to honor the individual bloom that usually only gets noticed as part of the whole. It is extraordinary on its own. I thought it deserved a closer look. I hope whoever wears this thinks of their own hoya every time they put it on and feels that specific and very particular joy of a plant that finally, finally decided it was time.
Shipping
Your hoya is finished, packaged safely, and will be on its way to you within 3 to 5 business days.