a couple years ago, a friend gave us a cactus looking plant that he had for 10 years and said it had never bloomed. after living for 2 years in our greenhouse, this summer we noticed some small buds developing. within a week or so these little buds grew into amazing huge buds. one evening, we noticed they started to open. it took about 4 hours before they completely revealed their full glory of an 8 inch flower. there were a total of 15 blooms on the plant. oh my gosh, the musky aroma was so powerful. of course, i grabbed my camera and spent an hour watching in awe and shooting away. by morning, everything was closed up and about a week later, all the buds dropped off.i researched it and was surprised to discover that what we had was an epiphyllum oxypetallum. a "queen of the night". is frequently referred to as an orchid but actually a cactus. they bloom once a year for one night. what a special night it was! next year, we're going to throw a party!
How very magical Pat!!
ReplyDeleteyour photos are lovely indeed - and even more so beacuse of the story :)
- nice to follow you!
Hi Pat. What a wonderful picture in your banner! And a great story about the cactus flower. That's worth throwing a party.
ReplyDeleteOh Pat, I grew up with that plant and I even had a photo listing of it in my shop a while back, the scent IS intoxicating, so glad you have it as well. I've given out many cuttings and a lot of them have had a lot of blooms over the years. My own two plants produce about 2 or 3 every year in late September and often get confused ( low light I guess ) and stay open till noon so I can enjoy them during the day. By the way, all the plants came from one stem. I took one from our house in Taipei when I immigrated here and used it a book mark . My aunt put it in water and it started growing - a very hardy and amazing plant.
ReplyDeleteThere is one in the dry cleaner's window down the street blooms continuously from June to Oct.