#cyanotis

[sunbadgerplants]

Teeny tiny flowers

[conspectusargosy]

Cyanotis somaliensis is a trailing succulent from Somalia which is called kitten ears for the fuzzy triangular leaves. Every part of the plant is covered in some amount of fuzz and the leaves are thick with fleshy, transparent leaf surfaces which appear to be covered on top with tiny lenses. The photosynthesizing portion is inside the leaf rather than on the surface. It belongs to the family Commelinaceae which is the dayflower family, often showing brightly colored blooms which only persist for a day.

[ghostlyfoliage]

I finally figured out how to water her. She likes a lot more water than I had anticipated with the succulent leaves. Here's how she started:

And here's how she's looking now:

They grow really fast when they're happy. I've even chopped and propped her once for a total of 8 vines in this pot and she's been going to town (my mother's is a freaking beast now too, I gasp everytime I see hers cus it's gotten SO BIG in such a short time).

[ghostlyfoliage]

I just chopped my teddy bear vine earlier this week to make a fuller plant. I didn't notice these when I took these cuttings, and I'm not sure if they've already rooted (they do root quickly) and stressed into flowering or if these will soon abort... but it feels like plants all over my house are flowering right now and I couldn't be more pleased by this.

[ghostlyfoliage]

So, apparently teddy bear vines bloom for a heck of a long time. I love the mixture of colors that makes these tiny blooms really pop - lavender petals and bright orange stamens backed with a fuzzy, almost iridescent blue.

They only open in the first half of the day, so I've had a really hard time getting a photo, but finally I caught it at just the right time.

[ohheyidothat]

Genus Cyanotis

[ghostlyfoliage]

Ah friend, you've come a long way from where you started! ♥️😌

[ghostlyfoliage]

This plant has been such a good grower for me in less than ideal conditions. This pot may not be what it would prefer to grow in and it honestly has a lot more space than it needs (this is 4 cuttings given to me by my mother (only one failed in the rooting process), but I really wanted to hang it because of the growth pattern). I couldn't find any information suggesting Teddy Bear Vine is epiphytic, though people do suggest that it doesn't like it's soil entirely dry despite having succulent leaves.

I think I may have been under-watering it due to the crispy dry and dropping leaves, but so far it seems to sprout new vines readily from these spaces, which is slowly filling in without creating a bald spot on the top - in fact there's more leaves on the top due to this new growth from spaces that have died back or from under the soil that it's always looking better and better despite the die back.