My Cacti 2009

CelticRose · Post by **CelticRose** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:10 pm

Nice plant.

Sorry you missed the flowers.

hegar · Post by **hegar** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 4:55 am

Before I go to bed I wanted to post some digital images of my Harrisia jusbertii. It is a night flowering cactus. However, if you do not need to obtain the most pristine photo you can wait until the next morning and photograph it then. The color rendition is better in any case and you do not need to be there by 5:30 or 6:00 a.m.. I took these images after 7:30 a.m.. It did help, that the sky was overcast.

The last image was taken using the super-macro setting on my camera. I do like it a lot!

Harald

Saguaro123 · Post by **Saguaro123** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 5:36 am

Beautiful flower Harold!
It's just stunning!

Post by **daiv** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 3:50 pm

That flower stalk does confirm the Harrisia ID too. Is that the first flower on this one?

peter · Post by **peter** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 5:33 pm

A beauty!

CelticRose · Post by **CelticRose** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:38 pm

Gorgeous flower!

hegar · Post by **hegar** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:10 am

Thank you for your comments! Some of the night-flowering cacti do have beautiful and huge blossoms. However, they seem to be always white, which is the easiest color to see when it is dark.
Daiv, the Harrisia jusbertii did already flower last year. Then the small stem piece was dwarfed by the huge blossom. I got this plant as a stem section and I was afraid that the reserves and moisture that the basically unrooted cutting was going to expend would perhaps kill the plant. It did look a little emaciated after the flowering was over, but then it did recover.
In the meantime two more of my plants put out flowers. The first one, as also the second plant are repeat bloomers. By the time I arrived at my house - after having spent time at the cactus club meeting and also a little at work - it was already 3:30 p.m. and the colors were a little washed out. However, it is still a pretty cactus and deserving of the name "Pride of Texas". The plant in question is of course Thelocactus bicolor. Here are two images of it.

The next cactus in bloom is also a Thelocactus. This one also delights me with repeat flowering. Its name is Thelocactus setispinus.

There are some buds showing on two of my Echinopsis eyrisii plants. However, it will be some time before they will be ready. Also, some of the cacti have yet to bloom and may still do so. I am crossing my fingers!

Harald

Post by **daiv** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:44 pm

You've got a good cross-section of plants to get such a long season of flowers Harald. Here, the cold-hardy's get all their blooms out of the way as fast as they can in spring and then it is just new pad growth.

Saguaro123 · Post by **Saguaro123** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:10 pm

Nice flowers.

lancer99 · Post by **lancer99** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:23 pm

Nice pics Harald, the flowers of the T. setispinus with their red throats are sehr schoen!

-R

kevin63129 · Post by **kevin63129** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:00 pm

Nice shots .That Harrisia bloom is great.

John C · Post by **John C** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:33 pm

Nice ones!

masscactus · Post by **masscactus** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:20 pm

Awesome shots and plants, very nice!

hegar · Post by **hegar** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:15 am

Thank you all for your kind comments. While some of my cacti have been flowering several times this year already, some others that did bloom years ago are not doing anything. This could be, because of the nematode problems I am plagued with. I am in contact with a scientist in India who will most likely give me some remedies, using microbial organisms to combat the root knot nematode. If that kind of treatment does work, my plants should be doing a lot better in the near future.

Harald

hegar · Post by **hegar** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:00 am

Well, finally I did get a series of good photos from a cactus that I had only seen with partially open, i.e. closed blossoms last year and also this one. While I was cleaning fallen leaves and blossoms that had fallen on my cacti from my Chitalpa tree I stumbled on this little fellow. Almost missed the flower on the Obregonia denegrii.
Here are a series of shots of the fully expanded blossom.

Harald