This winter finds me back in the Yucatan, which has far better winter weather than Ohio generally does (unless one is a fan of rain, mud, snow, ice, and gray skies with occasional bursts of sun). This morning my perambulation took me to Parque de las Americas, a large park in the Garcia Gineres neighborhood of Merida, home to bigger-than-average trees for this city. The park is worth its own post, but my color-hungry Northern eyes are focusing on flowers this week.
This lovely thing is growing in a neighbor's yard,
up a wall, and out over the sidewalk.
It was also full of bees, though none were willing to hold still long enough to permit much of a photo.
Thanks to the sharp eyes of a participant in a plant identification group on Facebook, this beautiful mystery-to-me plant was quickly identified as
Petrea volubilis, or purple wreath vine, native to much of Central America, including the Yucatan peninsula. Not only are its flowers gorgeous in multiple stages of their existence,
they are attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds, as well as the bees I saw darting among the bloom clusters. The plant is also a traditional medicinal, with its leaves used as a wound salve and in the treatment of diabetes. In earlier times, its blooms were combined with those of another native shrub in a tea used as a morning-after drug by women seeking to avoid pregnancy.
The plant is useful even in death. Its wood is reportedly dry, fast-burning, and useful as fuel. Queen's vine (another common name for the plant) is definitely more than another pretty face.
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