A day in the life

[saboten]

♬Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my cephalium...♬

This may not be anything interesting to the veterans here, but I enjoy how my melocactus acts like a kind of clock throughout the day. I wanted to show you one day in the life of the melo!

Around 1:30 pm or so, I can begin to notice the little buds starting to come out. This gives me the first inkling of how many flowers the Melo decided to make today!

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At 3:30 pm or so, the little buds become really apparent, and I can be certain about how many flowers will come.

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Around 5:45, the flowers are open fully and enjoying their short life with us!

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From then on, they begin to close up and shrivel, but stay on back the plant.

Next morning--what's this?! We got some fruit! The melo has just begun fruiting in the past week. They don't come out much farther than this, and in order to get one, I have to gently pull the nice little pull-tab/dried flower petals (I suppose designed for birds' convenience), and then the fruit will slide out from the cephalium. I always marvel at a plants ability to 'push' out fruits from seemingly nowhere!

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If I leave the fruit on the plant, they will dry right out so that I can see the seeds inside. Beautiful!

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Stay tuned for melo babies
I hope you enjoyed!

[hegar]

Hello saboten,
this certainly is an interesting thread, even for people who have grown cacti for a while. I do have a few plants in my cactus collection, which also seem to flower "out of nowhere". Those include plants with long and dense spines near the crown of the plant. Just today one of my Turbinicarpus plants had an open flower. I did look at it yesterday and noticed nothing. The Thelocactus bicolor also falls into this category. When you notice the good-size flower bud, it will open that very day. Other plants have their buds visible for what looks like ages and severely test my patience.
Having two fruits with mature seed just showed out over night is something I have never experienced. I wonder, if that is only true for some of the genus Melocactus.
Anyway, I thank you for posting this amazing news about the world of cacti.

Harald

[WayneByerly]

I've got a couple of Melocactus and I cannot wait for mine to develop a cephalium... what you have posted here is instructive and I think should be of interest to all who look to the Forum for information. To both the veterans/experts and the noobs

[ElieEstephane]

Hello saboten
I too was surprised with the mature fruits! I bought a melocactus matanzanus with lots of dried fruits. Then suddenly everyday it started popping mature fruits! They literally pop overnight

[saboten]

Thanks for all the kind replies, everyone. Today I got 5 (!) juicy looking fruits.

[saboten]

One more photo, just because I really like how this one turned out, and I couldn't resist sharing.

[esp_imaging]

Nice thread!
What do the fruits taste like?

[ElieEstephane]

What do the fruits taste like?

I tried some on mine and they tasted pineapple-ish to strawberry-ish. Not sure if i made sense

[saboten]

Nice thread!
What do the fruits taste like?

Thanks! I tasted one and it's just got a really light flavor. I don't know how to describe it beyond 'tutti frutti' -- not really sweet or resembling any specific fruit, but pleasant.

[DesertSun]

Oh, having fruit from your own cactus, how great is that Saboten! Well done, they look amazing and as you say, taste amazing also!

[Aiko]

You might make jam / marmelade out of it!