Some flower photos for Mother's Day

[Steve Johnson]

It's the day before Mother's Day, and what a nice display this was to see in person! To celebrate the occasion, let's look at some flowers...

I'll go from smallest to biggest, starting with the Epithelantha micromeris that hasn't stopped flowering since the end of February. Thought I'd already seen them get about as open as they can. I stand corrected:



Next, here's my Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele, which got a very early start on flowering compared to last year. It was too cool and cloudy to see the pseudomacrochele's first flowers of the year open. However, the plant more than made up for it when it went back to work going from buds to flowers in about a week. First the buds on Thursday, then the flowers today:





How about a few more Turb flowers? These are courtesy of the polaskii "family". The mama from CoronaCactus is on the right, with her adopted eldest -- and the biggest bud I've seen from any of the polaskiis so far:





All that loveliness captured in a 3" pot!

And now for the grand finale -- big beautiful flowers from my Eriosyce odieri. I detected what I thought were its first buds of the year on 3/27. Yep, buds confirmed, and here they are almost a month later:



The buds keep getting bigger -- as of last weekend:



It's almost go time -- the 2 biggest buds are about to pop:



And here we are today -- stunning!




The rest of the buds aren't quite ready yet, but I should see more flowers early in the week. Hope I'll be able to catch 'em in the act!

My best wishes to all of you for a happy Mother's Day!

[MJPapay]

What a way to celebrate!

Your adeptness, with what are for me difficult cactus species to grow, proclaims itself with the health of your plants and their pretty flowers.

Thanks for sharing.

(Oh, and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to the ladies of the board )

[hendryterok]

Wow nice flowers

[*Barracuda_52*]

Thats a beautiful sight to see on mothers day, THANKS!!
Now if only it wasnt snowing here and cold as sin i just might have blooms today as well BUT nope its way to cold and gloomy...

[oldcat61]

Now I'm confused. I have an Eriosyce odieri; looks just like yours, same buds, flowering at the same time but mine is yellow. Will take a pix when the rain stops & they open again ( I hope). Sue

[CactusFanDan]

Awesome flowers! It's too dull for me at the moment to have flowers opened more than a little bit. Love that odieri.

Sue, Eriosyce is a very varied genus, with a lot of things looking very different being captured in the same species. A slight change of flower colour doesn't mean it's not the same species either. Species within Eriosyce are mainly distinguished by the fruits and, to a lesser degree, the formation of the spines and flowers. In Katterman's book on Eriosyce, he says E. odieri can have flowers coloured from 'pale yellow to pale reddish'. But flower colour is highly variable anyway, so I wouldn't discount it on the basis of flower colour. Flowers can change colour with age too, but I'm not sure how much that happens in Eriosyce.

[oldcat61]

Thanks Dan, cactus taxonomy is a jumble for me. Yellow or pink - I'm just happy it's blooming & looks like a few new spines. Sue

[Steve Johnson]

Eriosyce is a very varied genus, with a lot of things looking very different being captured in the same species. A slight change of flower colour doesn't mean it's not the same species either.

True, although it's interesting to see variations in flower color even on the same plant. Here are the first flowers from my odieri about a year ago:



The plant came from CoronaCactus with a set of well-developed buds already. This year the buds are all mine. I'm wondering if the change in climate and growing conditions going from Corona to my coastal microclimate could affect the flowering outcome this year. Not that I'm disappointed at all, but as I said, this is interesting. Speaking of...

A 3rd bud came out to play, so here are a couple more flower photos just for Mother's Day:

[CactusFanDan]

That's quite interesting. I'd say it has to be due to the change in climate. Thanks for sharing.

[gemhunter178]

Very nice flowers!

[Steve Johnson]

I've been using my "poor man's light diffuser", but I wanted to see how those odieri flowers would photograph under full sun. Today was the perfect chance -- here's the flush I was hoping to capture:




The first 2 flowers are starting to wilt, so the scene won't be quite as photogenic tomorrow. Although I don't know the species well enough to see if its flowers can come in several flushes, I'll keep on the lookout just in case.

Cheers, everyone!

[Arjen]

beautiful looking plant and flowers steve!