Re: [gardeners] night blooming cereus
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 08 Sep 2002 20:57:26 -0500
We may be talking about two different plants here Ron. The night
blooming cereus as we know it in the south is a strap leaf cactus type
with long "branches" ending in a strap leaf with somewhat serrated
leaves. The blooms appear on long, round "hangers" and have a pinkish
red lattice around them. They open about 10 pm for us and have a large
white blossom with a delicious odor, they only last one night. These
have never had fruit in the 40 years we've been growing them. Latin name
is epiphyllum oxypetallum. Go here for pictures of this type:
http://www.netasia.net/users/charleskeng/flower.htm
George
Ron Hay wrote:
>
> Hello, Matt,
>
> If you plant really is a member of the cereus family, it absolutely
> requires sunlight to produce blooms...it can't get the energy to do so
> from any other source.
>
> We have a couple of potted plants, one of which may be a cereus (the
> blossom certainly looks like it: saucer shaped, white, about a foot
> across), while the other is likely a pitahaya, a member of the
> hylocereus family, the cactus which produces "dragon fruit" in Vietnam
> and other portions of SE Asia.
>
> I had the two plants in too much shade until about a month ago. When I
> moved it out into full sun, lo and behold, a blossom bud appeared.
>
> I am going to plant them in the ground so that they can climb on our
> neighbor's chain link fence, and we hope, eventually produce edible
> fruit.
>
> Our neighbor across the street has a very large cereus, about 8 feet
> tall, branching to about 6-7 feet. It has largely finished blooming and
> is loaded with bright red fruit. It has survived our Valley heat and
> frosts for over 40 years and its cutting have populated many homes on
> our block.
>
> But, without a question, it needs as much sun as you can give it.
>
> Ron
> Van Nuys, CA