It is a common house plant grown for its attractive waxy foliage, and sweetly scented flowers.

Hoya carnosa has been in cultivation for more than 200 years and has given rise to many cultivars that vary in foliage form or flower color.

[2][3] Hoya carnosa makes faintly succulent shoots with smooth, pale gray, and bare surfaces that twine and climb.

The thick flower corollas look as if made from porcelaine or from wax, leading to the plant's common names.

[5] Like most species of Hoya, H. carnosa flowers from specialised perennial peduncles; sometimes these structures are referred to as spurs.

[6] Studies at the University of Georgia, published in 2009, have shown H. carnosa to be an excellent remover of pollutants in the indoor environment.