Wayne's Cactus Flowers - Spring of 2019

[WayneByerly]

I've been absent for some time. And for those of you who care (and I have been extremely gratified to find that there are a few of you who DO), I apologize. It's age and health. I'm 66 and disabled from a motorcycle accident 23 years ago. It treated me very badly.

OK ... enough of that crap. No one wants to listen to THAT. Anyway, I think I should start posting some pictures of what few cacti I have that have produced flowers this year. 27 species so far this year ... I think.

1) Echinopsis chamaecereus ‘Rose Quartz’
Purchased April 2018 … about 3 inches tall and it even had some offsets when I bought it.

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This year, it’s about 4 inches tall. And as you might can tell, it’s offsets have put on a little bit of size and their number have increased slightly. You can see it's first bud of this year, just starting to develop, along the upper right side.

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This was taken outside in the greenhouse.

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I used to have a thing for photography. And I think that I actually managed to take a few creditable pictures. But then I hit a financial crisis (divorce) and I parted with all my equipment. Recently I thought I might try to "get back into" the photography a little bit and try to "dress up" some of my cactus flower pictures, and I wish I had taken the the date stamp function off of my pictures. Oh well ...
All of these pictures were taken with a little cheap Fuji camera that I don't think I paid more than $130 USD for. It manages to take some awesome macro photos.

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One of the things that I like about these flowers is the slight purple-ish tinge along the outside of the petals that they develop ... the red color IS quite attractive to my eye, but that purple-ish highlight is really something to me.

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I hope I did a good thing posting these pictures, and I hope that you enjoyed looking at them. I know I just LOVE to look at pictures of other peoples cacti.

[ElieEstephane]

What an amazing color! Glad to have u back on the forum Wayne. Please do keep posting

[WayneByerly]

OK ... I had 27 species flower this year--I'm pretty sure it was 27--and it is my intent on making a post for all of them, one species at a time. This will be my second.

2) Echinocereus rigidissimus var. rubrispinus

I first noticed that it was starting to flower on 4/1, but didn't photograph it until 4/18. This cactus, first purchased in July of 2013 is 6 years old this month.

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By 5/4, the buds have started to develop a "hairy" aspect.

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By 5/21, the buds are JUST about to open.

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Later on that day, the bud begins to open, and has a distinctly purpleish aspect.

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Hours later, the opening flowers retain some of the purpleish aspect, but are now beginning to look a little pink too.

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NOW, the flowers are taking on a very rich Pink aspect.

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I have NEVER in all my life see this shade of pink. I am so enamored of this vactus that I may arrange to have it buried with me (snicker). Combined with the orange stamen, and this is definately a cactus that I will remember for some time to come.

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I hope I've done a good thing posting these pictures as I have. And I hope you've enjoyed looking at them.

[WayneByerly]

This is post 3 of 27 of this series

3) Rebutia albipilosa

I bought this cactus last year, and did NOT, not by ANY stretch of the imagination, expect it to flower this year. But then I was talking to a friend one day via email, and told him, after he sent me a picture of one of his cacti that had orange flowers, "I wish that I had one with colors like that", and the next day this cactus began to flower.

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Where the flowers of the Echinocereus rigidissimus took two months to develop, this cactus had all of its flowers develop and then die in 3 weeks.

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This is a very tiny cactus, and as you might expect, and can determine by the size of the soil particles in this picture, the flowers are also.

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While the cactus DID flower continuously for three weeks, It NEVER bore more than three flowers at a time. Does anyone think that this might, Perhaps this might improve with age?

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The last flowers that this cactus produced were distinctly paler shade of orange than all of the previous flowers.

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I hope that I have done a good thing by posting these pictures, and I hope very much that you have enjoyed looking at these pictures.

[WayneByerly]

4) Sulcorebutia canigueralii v frankiana

As well as wanting to just post pictures of pretty cactus flowers, part of the reason that I do this is to display the progression from bud to flower ... for those of you who MAY be contemplating buying a speciment of a particular species. So that you will know how long they take to develop and how long they last.
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The S. canigueralii produces flowers from around the base instead of around the crown like many globular cacti do.

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This closeup does a nice job of depicting the pectinate array of thorns.

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It took some time for the buds to develop into anything significant.

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And then they put on a pretty good burst of growth.

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The remainder of these pictures do a very good job of depicting the very dark red color of the flowers. The very impressive dark red flowers make this one of my favorites of all my blooming cacti.

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I never got more than two buds breaking into flower at one time. Perhaps because it is a fairly young cactus.

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Hope you enjoyed them ...

[ElieEstephane]

These colors are just gorgeous!