SANDPAPER VINE: The Story Continues

The flowers are complex: the calice (chalice) bears a bud

that opens as a very impressive, intensly colored 

( blue, purple or blue-purple) violet/pansy-like flower

that drops within two days, leaving the star-like

calice to slowly fade from lilac-blue to hazy- gray.

The leaves of the Sandpaper Vine are very rough on both
sides, like a sandpaper, even when they are young and green.

The flowers of the Sandpaper Vine come in racemes ( like

grapes). This raceme/bunch is the first "historic" one.

 - Our vine is in bloom for the first time, since it was

 planted five years ago. It grows in a clay pot outsde

of the family room window.

THE UTILITARIAN ASPECT OF PETREA VOLUBILIS

Petrea Volubilis aka Sndpaper Vine is a very 
 beautiful plant to watch when in bloom.
The leaves of Petrea V. are very rough on
both sides, like a sandpaper! So, naturally,
 I thought they can be used like a sandpaper,
especially when dry ( no trace marks of green).
And that is the utilitarian aspect of Petrea Volubilis!

I tried to sand an old piece of  wood with a dry leaf, and it worked.

Sandpaper Vine: the leaves are very rough, like a sandpaper!

VIOLA CANINA PHOTO

My violets are called "Dog violets." They blossom every year in late January, or early February.