Names Have Roots

Phil Achleman
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Home & Garden

Every hoya is named for a real person. Each week, Phil Achleman tells the story behind the name: the collectors, botanists, gardeners, and obsessives whose lives got attached to a plant. Hoya kerrii, Hoya clemensiorum, Hoya meredithii, and the gardener whose name became the entire genus. A houseplant podcast from Gathering Moss. New episodes every Tuesday.

Episodes

  1. 11h ago

    Thomas Hoy, Where Hoya Took Root

    The man whose name you say every day. Before hoya was a plant, it was Thomas Hoy, a working gardener at Syon House who served three Dukes of Northumberland across forty years. In 1810, botanist Robert Brown named an entire genus for him. This week: the gardener's life in the 1780s, the great estate across the river from Kew, and why Brown gave the genus to the cultivator. A species epithet is a thank-you note. A genus is a monument. Names Have Roots tells the stories behind hoya names. New episodes every Tuesday.

    Thomas Hoy, Where Hoya Took Root

  2. Sep 29

    Hoya kerrii: The Roots He Couldn't Leave

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Most people know Hoya kerrii as the heart-shaped plant sold around Valentine’s Day. Behind that familiar leaf is the remarkable story of Arthur Francis George Kerr—an Irish doctor whose life became deeply rooted in Siam, now Thailand. In this episode, Phil follows Kerr from Trinity College Dublin to Chiang Mai and Doi Suthep, where he collected the specimen that William Grant Craib later described as Hoya kerrii. Along the way, we explore Kerr’s work as a physician, botanist, husband, father, wartime veteran and chronicler of Thailand’s extraordinary plant life. The surviving specimen, diaries and botanical records reveal much of Kerr’s life—but leave one important moment frustratingly undocumented. Next episode: the gardener whose name became an entire genus—Thomas Hoy. Names Have Roots Every Hoya has a name. Every name has a story. Let’s find the next one.

    Hoya kerrii: The Roots He Couldn't Leave

  3. Sep 22

    Hoya clemensiorum: The Rooted Wanderers

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Hoya clemensiorum is named for two people, not one. Joseph Clemens was an Army chaplain who followed his wife Mary into the field, from Hawaii to the Philippines to China to British North Borneo. When he died on a jungle trail in New Guinea in 1936, Mary wrote it down on a herbarium label and kept collecting alone, adding roughly fourteen thousand more specimens before she was done. This episode is their story, and how a hoya lost its name and got it back. Full writeup at gatheringmoss.shop/blogs/hoya-names/hoya-clemensiorum-the-rooted-wanderers

    Hoya clemensiorum: The Rooted Wanderers

  4. Sep 16

    Prologue

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Why am I doing this?

    Prologue

  5. Sep 16

    Hoya Meredithii: Roots of Controversy

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Updated September 2026: an earlier version of this episode included a quote I could not verify. It has been corrected, and the audio above is the fixed version. The plant's story turned out to be better than the first draft anyway. Hoya meredithii was named in 1988 for York Meredith, a plantsman of Dee Why, New South Wales. Nobody had ever pulled together his full story before, and there is a real, credentialed challenge to the plant's own name that it stood up to. Full written version, with sources: https://gatheringmoss.shop/blogs/hoya-names/the-plantsman-of-dee-why

    Hoya Meredithii: Roots of Controversy
  • 5 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Every hoya is named for a real person. Each week, Phil Achleman tells the story behind the name: the collectors, botanists, gardeners, and obsessives whose lives got attached to a plant. Hoya kerrii, Hoya clemensiorum, Hoya meredithii, and the gardener whose name became the entire genus. A houseplant podcast from Gathering Moss. New episodes every Tuesday.

Information

  • Creator
    Phil Achleman
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Phil Achleman
  • Show Website
    Names Have Roots

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