Queen of the Night Flower Bud

Queen Flower Bud

Intuition, or something, drove me to hike up the hill out back to see how the recovering Arizona Queen of the Night cactus (peniocereus greggii) was doing. When I arrived at the spot where the cactus lives, I was greeted by a flower stalk and a bud that looks as if it may have bloomed after dusk last night. I say that because of previous experience with another specimen that had flowers elsewhere on the lot two years ago. The image at the link shows two flowers opening and a third that was open the previous night.

It’s too bad that this cactus is located in a part of our desert lot that is marginally accessible, even in daylight. Naturally, there is no way either of us would think of trying to hike up there after dark, even to see something as spectacular as these flowers.

The good news is that the Queen Cactus (image) on the hill recovered from the microburst incident last summer where a limb from a palo verde tree fell on it. Click the link to see all the new growth on the cactus, some of which we plan to relocate/transplant to more accessible places in the lot.

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