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BajaBlanca
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Posts: 13197
Registered: 10-28-2008
Location: La Bocana, BCS
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longlegs: finally found the costa rica pitaya and the flower is exactly the same, sin't it ? However, after some investigating, I found that it is
night blooming - my neighbor's cactus bloomed all day long.
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monoloco
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Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
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We have a night blooming cereus that puts out VERY fragrant flowers about 6 or 8 inches in diameter. One night we had almost a hundred bloom at once
permeating the air with the most fabulous scent. A lot of insects were attracted to the flowers.
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ecomujeres
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Posts: 299
Registered: 9-10-2006
Location: Mulege, BCS & Oakland, CA
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexitron
Monoloco---sure looks like a San Pedro Cactus (Cereus or Echinopsis pachanoi) in the upper photos. The lower two are some version of Cereus
peruvianus (Night Blooming Cereus) I'd imagine. The are both bat-pollinated. No, really, I'm cereus! |
Thanks Mexitron--I have had no idea what the cacti are in my neighbor's yard. I was thinking one was a Cereus of some kind, and they seem to be
fairly common in people's gardens in California.
I don't know if they start blooming newly in the afternoon and continue over the night, or start opening in the morning. The ones in my photos were
happily open and going strong at midday today. I should ask the neighbor when I see her next. Didn't notice any fragrance.
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Mexitron
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Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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| Quote: | Originally posted by ecomujeres
| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexitron
Monoloco---sure looks like a San Pedro Cactus (Cereus or Echinopsis pachanoi) in the upper photos. The lower two are some version of Cereus
peruvianus (Night Blooming Cereus) I'd imagine. The are both bat-pollinated. No, really, I'm cereus! |
Thanks Mexitron--I have had no idea what the cacti are in my neighbor's yard. I was thinking one was a Cereus of some kind, and they seem to be
fairly common in people's gardens in California.
I don't know if they start blooming newly in the afternoon and continue over the night, or start opening in the morning. The ones in my photos were
happily open and going strong at midday today. I should ask the neighbor when I see her next. Didn't notice any fragrance. |
My recollection (Which may be a little fuzzy as I've been in Texas for over 4 years and they don't grow here....) is that they open up around 10 or 11
at night and stay open until the next morning, then gradually fading. This schedule makes sense since they are bat-pollinated (in their native
habitat), but growing out of their range there might be some variation by now(......?)
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ecomujeres
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Posts: 299
Registered: 9-10-2006
Location: Mulege, BCS & Oakland, CA
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| Quote: | Originally posted by ecomujeres
Here in Oakland, we have a neighbor who has a huge cactus (along the size of Baja's Pitaya dulce - Stenocereus thurberi) that is probably a species of
Echinopsis. Almost every summer (even here in the fog belt) it puts on the most incredible display with its mass flowering of huge (9-11 inch) white
flowers. It goes on for about a week or so, with maybe up to 50 flowers total on the 8-10 stems, then just stops. Really cool...
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BajaBlanca:
Well, I seriously underestimated the number of flowers that that cactus can put out! I've been following my neighbors plants photographically since
June 23 when the first flower or two bloomed. Here's but one sample, with 50+, when it hadn't even got fully going:
One of the plants had many flowers, as the photo I previously posted shows, while the large plant had only 2 or 3. However, on July 7 I went back and
then returned every few days after that.
I've posted a bunch of photos of the large plant's progression from July 11 to 21 to my Picasa album. I still have to rename the photos of the other
cacti to group similar photos so a sequence of growth can be seen and will upload and post them when I have time.
Check out my Picasa album. The file names indicate the dates, and in some cases time of day that the photos were taken. View as a slideshow to see a group of
photos of the same angle/plant part as it progresses over time.
On the 15th, I went by in the morning on my regular walk and there were 4 flowers. We returned at about 8 pm that evening and there were more than 20
flowers fully open. There wasn't much fragrance from the flowers (too cold) until the evening of the 16th when we had a balmy evening.
Incredddddible! And the plants were all swarming with honey bees. Didn't see anything other than European ones, nothing native.
The number of open flowers kept increasing on a given afternoon/evening, when new flowers opened. From 20 to 30 to 45 then 60 and 80 and on. On the
morning of the 19th, I counted over 100 blooms that had been open during the past day and two nights and were by then mostly closing up and wilting.
I also counted around 30 more buds that still had not opened.
These plants are amazing and I really enjoyed the doucmentation process. I think that they are now mostly done, though the two cacti next door are
still putting out new buds and blooms, though on a much smaller scale.
Enjoy!
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ecomujeres
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Posts: 299
Registered: 9-10-2006
Location: Mulege, BCS & Oakland, CA
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexitron
My recollection (Which may be a little fuzzy as I've been in Texas for over 4 years and they don't grow here....) is that they open up around 10 or 11
at night and stay open until the next morning, then gradually fading. This schedule makes sense since they are bat-pollinated (in their native
habitat), but growing out of their range there might be some variation by now(......?) |
Mexitron, I forgot to add that the cactus flowers, at least in my cool, foggy Oakland CA climate, started to open around 3pm, at least on the warmer
or sunny days (though temps have only been in mid 70's if we were lucky) and on cooler days, the majority of them weren't yet open at 7-8 pm.
It did seem that there were many flowers that we saw that were beginning to unfurl around 7:30 or 8 pm, and that the next morning when I swung by,
were then completely open, and stayed so through at least the next evening in most cases.
It is likely that the majority open after dark, as you indicated. They remind me of Cardons, which begin opening in late afternoon but peak in
opening and nectar production throughout the dark of night. Hedging bets, no doubt, to reach diurnal as well as nocturnal pollinators, or early
risers/late to bed-ers.
I'm sure climate has soman effect on timing.
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Mexitron
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Posts: 3397
Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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Good to know ecomujeres.
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woody with a view
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good observations Eco....
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