Damsel

Even more spectacular than last year’s opening, our “Cherry Red” Trichocereus Grandiflorus cactus presented us with twenty-one beautiful hot pink flowers this morning. Despite the Cherry Red nomenclature, the color of the petals in bright sunlight has a definite pink tinge.

This is our third, and most spectacular year of flowers on this cactus. It is in it’s original pot from when we bought it, and now needs to be transplanted into a larger pot or into the ground in the rock and cactus garden. The only problem with the latter option is that I’m afraid that the desert wildlife will nibble on the cactus, buds and fruit. I have a larger pot into which we will put the cactus and all of it’s satellite “pups” to remain in the courtyard where it is less likely to be damaged by the critters.

We have had this cactus for a very long time. We originally bought it at a garden shop near Chandler, AZ way back in the late 1990’s. It lived with us in California and then moved with us to Arizona. It gave us lots of flowers over the years. Then, a couple of years ago, It started growing another barrel on top of the crown. Lately, the flower buds have come out on the new growth.

Click on the image to enlarge.

We have been waiting for the last bud to open on the Queen of the Night cactus (Peniocereus greggii) across from our driveway. There were two buds, but one came and went already before we noticed. We managed to get this shot last evening after nine PM local time after watching the ISS fly over. Click on the image to enlarge.

There are several p. greggii growing in the wild around the property. We also have one cutting that we have growing in a pot in the courtyard. Only a couple of the cacti are accessible at night which is when the flowers open.

The cutting in the courtyard finally has shown us a new branch and we are hoping that we will be getting flowers on it too. That is not likely this year, but we will be keeping watch on it.

Both of these cacti have open flowers today. On top, open in the back patio area, is a local native mammillaria sheldonii fishhook cactus we rescued from a construction area down the road a year or two ago. Below, open in the courtyard out front is a mammillaria yaquensis fishhook cactus that was a gift from our friend Crotalus.

Click on either image to enlarge.

Update: Crotalus advises us that the top panel specimen might actually be mammillaria tetrancistra. The one we quoted above typically is found only in Mexico.