Flowers

This is the time of year that these barrel cacti show their flowers. On the left above, the Devil’s Tongue cactus in my rock and cactus garden displays six flowers open. On the right, my Golden Barrel cactus shows six more flowers that are smaller than the other ones, but the cactus is a bit larger than the Devil’s Tongue. The two cacti are about three feet apart in the garden.

Click on either image to enlarge.

Fortunately, when we had the massive rainfall in July, the runoff spared most of the cacti in the garden since most of what we transplanted here was on higher ground than the creek that flows when it rains a lot. We plan to distribute the rocks and other landscape items to conform to the flow that will most likely happen again.

I am always intrigued by the delicate inner parts of the cactus flowers. This is an extreme close-up photo of a flower that opened up on my Astrophytum (Star Cactus) yesterday and was open again today. Unlike the Bishop Cap flowers that are only open for a single day, this cactus offers a second look the flower on the next day.

I also took a photo of the whole cactus flower. Click on the link to the left or on the image above for full-sized views.

I posted about this cactus two months ago when it had three flowers. I did not post last month when it had several more flowers. Today, there are five of them open. This cactus has been with us since the late 1990’s and has been faithful about having flowers ever since its first year of blooms.

I will have photos of our other Astrophytum cactus in a day or so when its flowers open. I just love spring, summer and second spring cactus flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Astrophytum Ornatum cactus by the back patio offered another beautiful flower today. They come and go so quickly that I was lucky to get this shot when the flower was completely open. In the morning, it was still just a bud, but by early afternoon it had closed up again. It may open again tomorrow, but we will probably be on the road to see our newest grandson.

We were lucky enough to have watched these Arizona Queen of the Night flowers steadily growing on the host cactus since a few weeks ago. Tonight, I walked out to see if the buds were open yet, but they weren’t. They definitely looked as if they would open, so later, I ventured out again, well after dark, and saw them fully open. Click on the image to enlarge.