Cluster of Jewels

Hoya curtisii flowers on my kitchen windowsill.  Hayes, 8 November 2014.

 Hoya flowers are beautiful miniatures, like clusters of jewels.  I have posted some before - Hoya bella here, and Hoya serpens here.  This one, Hoya curtisii, flowered for me this year.  (Those tiny greenfly get everywhere!)

A single Hoya curtisii flower.   Hayes, 8 November 2014.

They do have drawbacks.  Hoya bella is very free-flowering but the clusters all face downwards, so you need to have it trailing from up high if you want the best view.  Bot this one and Hoya serpens have inconspicuous fowers that you need to get close to to get the benefit.  Hoya serpens is probably the best, though, because its fabulous scent fills the house.

Close up, they seem just a bit more glamorous than native flowers, lovely as they can be.  For comparison, here's a Dogwood from earlier in the year:

Dogwood flowering in my back garden in Hayes, 18 April 2014.

Of course, another view is that the Hoyas look like costume jewellery, whereas this is the real thing.

And another comparison.  Here's a Stapelia variegata, a succulent plant from southern Africa, that lives indoors here in winter and outdoors in summer.  As the flowers smell of rotten meat, like an ill-tended dustbin, outdoors is good.

Stapelia variegata flower on my balcony in Hayes.  13 August 2014.

Like the Hoyas, this is exotic, but I would not describe it as jewel-like.  Of course, there are exotic native flowers too.  Orchids, for example.