Ehretia amoena

Ehretia amoena, the sandpaper bush or in Afrikaans skurweblaarbos (rough or coarse leaved bush), is a shrub or small tree reaching heights to around 5 m (SA Tree List No. 656).

The leaves are obovate with dark green hairy surfaces, rough to the touch. The base tapers narrowly while the tip may be rounded, notched or also tapering.

The flowers are fragrant, white, blue or sometimes pale mauve. The corollas are funnel-shaped with lobes that curve back. The calyx has triangular lobes. Flowers grow in spring and summer in lax terminal panicles.

E. amoena grows in South Africa only in the far northeastern parts, in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. This tree is more widely spread in Africa, in several countries to the north. Swaziland and Mozambique are among those.

The bushes are typically found near rivers or in sandy bushveld, sometimes on termite mounds. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; http://redlist.sanbi.org).