Thursday, May 27, 2010

My night-blooming cereus

I've got this plant for a few years and it has been blooming for me every year. Much to my appointment, however, I had never been around to see it bloom until this evening.
Unlike others' plants who might bloom very late into the evening, my plant decided to open at around 7pm. I wanted to be able to record the opening process of the bloom so I just cut the "leaf" and put it in a vase. These are the photos that showed the various opening stages of the bloom.
This photo was taken at 6.20 pm, when the bud started to open a bit.


By 7.00 pm, I could already see the parts inside when the bud was half open.


Half an hour later, at 7.30pm, the bud was fully opened. At the same time, my living room was filled with a pleasant scent! But I knew, after this photo, the bloom would stay on for about an hour more and then would start its fading process so that it would look teribly life-less in the morning!




Such a beauty but also such short-lived!

2 comments:

lynn'sgarden said...

WOW!! My mom has this cactus in her garden in Calif and I actually saw it in bloom at last visit. Yes, such a shame they last but a few hours. And the fact that they bloom only at night ads to their mysterious beauty! Glad you got to 'see' it this time, Ha Xuan!
Lynn

Hà Xuân said...

Our old folks highly valued this cactus because of its "mysterious beauty" Lynn. I myself really like its delicate petals.