Thursday 25 June 2009

Cactus flower - name unknown

My most lethal, yet for 2 days each year, also my most beautiful house plant!!
My children gave me this cactus plant years ago - in fact more years than I care to remember! It has never been re potted but recently it has started to flower. This year there are 9 flowers which start off as a phallic shaped growth - you can just see one on the left of the first photo. They then grow extremely quickly and it's almost possible to watch the flower opening. Unfortunately they only last for 36 hours at the most, as you can see a couple of these are beginning to wilt and within a further 12 hours they will close up and droop and then eventually fall off. They give off a rather strong sweet smelling fragrance.














I will be happy to hear from anyone who can provide a name for this cactus.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The flower is very similar to one I've seen in north central Arizona and what a local nursery termed an "Amazon Giant." It's a hybrid and difficult to tell.
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