Night Blooming Cereus

My Garden - September 2012

I've had a night blooming cereus plant for several years. The first plant bloomed 2 years ago and I nearly missed the event. Even now when I look at the few images I made then it's clear I missed the biggest part of the event. Below are blooms from my current plant. It is a cutting off the original which was accidentally left out and did not survive a fall freeze. I first noticed buds forming on August 31. At that time the buds were barely 2 inches in length. I watched over the next two weeks as they grew to full bloom. The bloom has to be one of the more beautiful blossoms I've seen. The inner part was about 4 inches across while from tip to tip on the back petals it was about 10 inches in diameter. There was a pleasant perfume that filled the air from the 4 buds that survived to full bloom. Originally there were 5 buds but the weather over laborday weekend might have caused one to drop.

The first two images in this sequence are from the day before bloom. Then on September 13th, the day of bloom, I noticed about 5pm that the tip of the bud was just beginning to separate. It took nearly 5 hours for it to open completely. A fellow photographer Jim Snyders and I watched in amazement as it grew to full bloom just after 10pm. We played with lighting and made images until the early hours of the morning. I quit about 12:30am and Jim stayed until about 1:15am. Upon checking the blooms at about 7am they were done and closing up. Linda reported that by 8am they were closed.

This plant is both beautiful and a little creepy in form. For whatever reason the bud reminded me of the plant from Little Shop of Horrors and that strange thing in one of the Men in Black movies.

I took a new cutting from it and now wonder when either the original or the cutting will bloom again.

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