Noid 'Eleanor' x Carlablackiae

Alex Hernandez acquired this plant from Hoya Hole. I purchased a top cutting from Alex Hernandez and Carlos Jimenez as Alex was exiting the hobby. According to them, only two other people own this particular clone.

Alex and Carlos initially refused to sell this plant, and I could see why. After plenty of negotiating, I offered to buy the top cutting and leave the base of the plant with them. That was how it finally came into my collection. The leaf pictured here has a deep burgundy to dark chocolate color, with pink veins that seem to glow against the blade. The main veins are slender, but they branch repeatedly into smaller lines, filling the leaf with detail from the lobes nearly to the tip. At the top, two broad lobes rise on either side of a narrow, sharply defined V-shaped sinus. The result is a leaf that looks striking from across the room and becomes even more intricate up close.

What’s not to love? The color caught me first, but the fine, abundant veining is what made me determined to bring it home. I’m glad we found a way for Alex to keep the base while I could grow on the top cutting. So far, I have only one small batch of seeds from using this plant as the mother. I sold three or four seedlings and kept the rest to watch them develop. Fortunately, the ones I kept are already showing a lot of similarities to their mother, which makes this plant even more exciting to grow.