Queen of the Night

And so for nights

we waited, hoping to see

the heavy bud

break into flower.

     "The Night Blooming Cereus"

     Robert Hayden

Our Night Blooming Cereus is again getting ready to bloom. We wait, often, a decade between blooms so this is an event of almost epic proportions. I wrote about this plant in August 2009 (click here to read that blog) and gave its history: this plant goes back nearly a century now.

 The plant last bloomed at the end of July 2009. Actually, it tried to bloom a couple of years ago. Mom bumped the flower and it fell to the floor and both we - and I assume the plant - were too disappointed for another attempt.

 When my grandmother owned this Night Blooming Cereus, she always called it Jesus in the Manger. There are other common names for these members of ceroid cacti: Queen of the Night, Princess of the Night, Honolulu Queen. Wikipedia has a nice entry on this plant. Click here to read it.

 This newest bud began to organize itself on August 13. It begins with a tiny imperfection on the edge of a leaf. It is almost not visible at this stage. Or, as we usually think, it this just another leaf expanding?

 So, now follow below the dated progression of bud to bloom ...

August 13 - the first hint of a bud developing 

August 17 - four days later, it is apparent that the plant is flowering 

August 20 - the bud develops quickly - now there is no doubt

August 24 - early hints of telltale pink begin to infuse the bud 

August 27 - the bud grows heavy enough to hang down 

August 30 - and then it begins to right itself, turning upwards

August 31 - the lovely shade of light pink becomes more evident 

September 1 - the bud continues to lift itself 

September 2 - the bud seems suspended on a goose-neck

September 3 - now the bloom drops to horizontal. "Birth" is tonight?

... and so, on the evening of September 3, the bloom opened. Even in the late afternoon I could see that the end of the flower was slightly opened. Through the remaining hours until dark, the flower expanded, as though it was a white elongated balloon being slowly inflated.
 At 8:30 pm, as I readied to go to bed (and set an alarm as necessary), I shined the flashlight onto our enclosed porch, and there in the dark it was opening its petals. The flower does wait for the dark.

September 3 - about 9 pm 

September 3 - about 9 pm

 So it was 21 days from start to finish. I'm sure the tiny bud we first saw on August 13 was there a few days earlier but too small to be seen (or simply hidden from view). How does a bud go from infinitesimal to this in three weeks? It's an amazing feat of nature, played out on our porch.

September 4 - about 8:30 am - Finished! 

September 4 - the bloom has collapsed in on itself

It's as soft as damp tissue paper and pure white

 Now we return to waiting. Six years? Ten? How long until we see another bloom? There is no hurry with this old plant.

Added later:

 What if we didn't cut the bloom off? I understand the plant will form some sort of red-orange elliptical fruit.that is about three inches long. We'll see ...

September 7

Night Bloomer ... again!

 We never expect our Night Blooming Cereus to bloom more often than once a decade. Or, rather, that's how we've always thought about it in the past. But recently something strange is happening. It bloomed last September (click here to read the story).

 Before that there was a five year gap. That still seemed too often for our expectations but we couldn't argue with success. To see the 2009 bloom, click here.

 To learn more about the plant, click here.

 I won't belabor the story - because I've told it twice before - but I still wanted to share last night's bloom, as much for my own record-keeping as anything.

07/28/16 - 11:21 pm

 We have been watching a bud develop after first spotting it on July 14, the day after my birthday. I water the plants we keep on our porch each Thursday so both Mom and I were checking the plants that day. She spotted the telltale bud first.

07/14/16 - The first sign

07/21/16 - Developing quickly 

07/27/16 - Just a day before opening 

07/28/16 - Mere hours to go

 Last evening, before climbing the stairs to go to bed at 9 pm, I took a last look. The flower bud looked substantially like the picture above, though some of the pinkish strips of tissue seemed to be pulling away. I knew the blooming was close, though I expected it to take another full day. The plant has never seemed in a hurry.

 The plant only blooms at night, As I climbed the stairs, the sun had recently set but the sky was still bright. I decided not to get up during the night.

 I turned on the Internet radio and listened to Hillary Clinton give her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention and then switched over to the BBC in London to listen to a local talk show. I slowly began to fall to sleep.

 About 11:30 pm I heard Mom's voice, muffled by the running a/c. I crawled out of bed and asked her what she wanted. "I'm up and I thought maybe we ought to check on the Night Blooming Cereus and see if it was blooming." I told her I had checked at bedtime but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a look.

 I walked down the steps and we both went over to the door to the indoor porch. I turned on the light and stepped out. "My gosh," I told her. "It's in full bloom!"

 She came out, too - though she can barely walk at nearly ninety-one, and we enjoyed the bloom together. The plant was originally her mothers and it was grown on a front porch in Miamisburg during the summers (I think it was placed in an unheated attic in the winter). This is a start (maybe even several times removed) from that plant. Mom looked at the glorious bloom as said, "It's like talking to my mother.."

 It is, of course, one of those special shared moments that I'll remember forever. I love that the past gathers a voice through flowers and I hope, on some future night, to hear my mother speak to me.

Night Blooming Cereus Blooms Again

 It's only been a little over a year since our Night Blooming Cereus erupted into bloom. That was July 29, 2016. Previous blooms I've recorded have been on September 4, 2015 and on August 5, 2009. My understanding was that this plant was a rare-bloomer, maybe as seldom as once per decade, but recent episodes have proved that wrong.

 The most interesting aspect of the plant is that it is truly a night bloomer. The buds may swell and look ready to part but it never happens until darkness descends.

 Here's the current chronology of this cycle ...

08/31/17 

 I first noticed the bud while the plant was summering on our back porch. Mom and I were on the way to the grocery.

09/03/17 

 Because of recent gusty storms, I brought the plant back inside to its usual spot on our south-facing enclosed porch. Carrying it carefully with that dangling bud wasn't easy and was fraught with danger. Mom once accidentally knocked off a bloom at about this point.

09/03/17 

 I noticed that a nearby leaf has four baby buds. I've never seen multiple blooms on this plant.

09/03/17 

 Here's a close-up of the bud. There's a little insect at about 3 o'clock. Mom removed it carefully.

09/05/17 

 The bud turns up a bit before it blooms. That's a good signal that blooming is imminent

09/06/17 

 Just a day ago I figured the time had arrived. I've set an alarm each night for either midnight or 1 am so I'd be sure not to miss it. I was getting tired of getting up in the middle of the night and checking.

09/07/17

 Early yesterday the bud looked mature and about ready to open. The colors are exquisite: rose, mauve and various shades of ivory. And yet the bloom, when fully open, will be a pure white.

09/07/17 

 I watched some TV and Mom went to bed. I checked the bud about 8 pm as the sun set. Nothing. It was still closed but looked like a balloon ready to burst. Then, at 9 pm as I readied to go to bed myself, I peaked through the dining room window and shined a flashlight on the plant one last time. It had opened in the past hour.

09/07/17

 It's really quite a sight as it begins to unfold. All the rose-colored bands which seem to bind it together, peel away and the blossom seems to explode with pent-up energy.

09/07/17

 Here's as close to a head-on shot as I could get. The flower is very delicate and can't be easily handled. In the distant past I remember these blooms to be quite fragrant but I've not noticed any scent recently.

 I'll keep an eye on the four developing buds and post pictures here. So check back.

Night Blooming Cereus Blooms ... Again!

  I don't know what's with the Night Blooming Cereus because it is supposed to be a rare bloomer. And yet we just had a beautiful bloom on June 27. I won't go into the details of how often it used to bloom because I've written about it before.

[To read about previous blooms use the search tool at the top left. Note: you must be in desktop mode]

Tom I wrote ourselves a note to look at the bloom before bed last evening. We walked outside and looked into the porch through the glass window. What we saw (above) was breathtaking.

 But let me return to earlier days ...

On July 8 while I was watering the plants on the enclosed porch I saw that there was a new bud. That's just eleven days after the last. Probably this bloom is part of the same cycle, though.

 The bud was already somewhat developed by the time I found it. I was a little worried that we'd miss it because we were heading to Michigan on vacation (July 10 - 14) But it held off and opened the night of July 18.

 This is how it looked a bit earlier in the day (about 5 PM). Though it was still light out, the flower was already beginning to open. I've not seen that happen before.

 I've told friends that the blooming of our NBC is a bittersweet event. It was my mother's plant - and her mother's before that - so there's a lot of memories encapsulated in every bloom. I remember each time we'd head to the porch before Mom went to bed and marvel at our good fortune. And I always worried that it might be the last.

 Her mother,  too, had a similar experience. How many times through the years have we enjoyed these magnificent blooms? And yet they've always been rare ... until recently.

 This is the first year in many that I've not carried it outside for the summer. It's simply too big and ungainly at this point. So it's propped against a wall and a window on the south-facing enclosed porch. Apparently it's happy there. Every Thursday when I water it I'm encouraging it to bloom.

 And bloom is does, opening a wealth of memories with every unfurling petal.

 When it's finished (pix takes about 2:30 PM the next day), they look like a burst balloon. They just hang their heads and die.

Night Blooming Cereus

My maternal grandmother, Catherine Paulsen, always had a plant which intrigued us because it only seemed to bloom every seven or so years and only at night. When we got the call, we'd actually drive over to see the magnificent - and rare - bloom.
I know more about it now and it's not so rare. But it's just as magnificent as I remember as a child.
Behold a picture of the single bloom we were given on July 30.


Just before the Night Blooming Cereus bloom opens, it begins to unwind pink strands which seem to have been holding the flower tight. As they slowly drop away, the flower opens in a rush. Taken with a time exposure, it must seem like an explosion.



Perhaps this (below) is a better view of how the bud is held together.

Here is Mom (below) watering the plant, a member of the cactus family and native to the southwest. We often take it outside in the summer and let it flourish on the back porch. But not this year (actually, it's getting too big to handle and could use a good pruning). Mom punched a couple of fertilizer sticks into the soil earlier in the year and I suppose that gave the plant an extra push to get a flower open before winter.

The earliest bud is tiny - it looks like no more than a speck when it first appears. Slowly it expands and begins looking more like a flower and less like just another flat leaf. Color begins flowing to the edges as they take on their sunrise pink hue.

Here (below) is a look inside the bloom. What a marvelous machine it is! Look at all the intricate and delicate parts. Snow white and ivory mixed with pastel shades of yellow. It makes me think of a wedding inside a single bloom.

The original plant - the one my grandmother grew - certainly dates back more than 80 years. When my grandmother died in 1969, Mom inherited the plant. Since then she started this plant from it as the original was becoming unsightly.

So the flower you see owes its genesis to a plant from the 1920's and it still blooms proudly in a new century.

Usually the bloom has an intoxicating scent but I smelled almost nothing this time. Dad said he woke during the night and found the sweet scent permeating the first floor. By the next morning, the bloom is finished. One year we did not see the bud in time and found only the spent remains of the flower.

I would call this our most precious plant for its connection to my grandmother. It is the rarity of its bloom that endears it to us, too. What you wait longest for is most precious in its time.

NBC Blooms Again

 We call it our NBC - Night Blooming Cereus - because it's easier. Technically it's not that at all but a common Epiphyllum (Epiphyllum Oxypetalum - Queen of the Night). It's too late to change now and, frankly, all of my friends who has one calls it the same thing. But maybe that's my fault?

 I won't belabor the point nor repeat background information. Simply use the search tool on this blog to find past posts about this same flower.

 I have gotten in the habit of taking it from its overwintering spot on our enclosed porch to the back porch each spring after the last frost. There's no doubt the plant relishes this spot in the sun and with country air flowing all about. It is a cactus after all.

 Earlier this spring it developed three buds. But two fell off on their own and I broke the third off when I was moving the plant slightly. So I figured it was done for this year.

 By the way, my mother and grandmother both thought the plant bloomed about every decade but this is clearly not the case. A happy Epiphllyum will bloom every year. And sometimes even more often.

 A couple of weeks ago the plant again began developing buds - eight to ten of them. And we've watched them expand with every day. (I've also been careful to keep hands off).

 Sunday night (08/09/20) I walked out after the sun had set and darkness began falling and saw that five of the buds were beginning to open. I've never seen that many at one time. Usually when Mom and I would get up during the night and view the plant on the porch, it was for a single flower.

 Tom and I went back out about 10:30 PM and saw flowers opening in profusion. The two pictured at  the top of this post were side by side. Mom always loved the scent but I can smell nothing. Tom said it smelled like "fresh linen air freshener". Even my grandmother mentioned how the sweet scent was what drew her to the blooming flower. She was usually unaware that the plant was even considering blooming.

 In this shot you can see a flower that is just beginning to open and another bud to the left which is perhaps a day away from glory.

 Last night (08/10/20) I went to bed (it had been raining) but Tom went out about 12:30 AM (actually 08/11/20) and found three more blooms fully open and another well on the way.

 It's sad to see the beautiful white blossoms now lying on the cool concrete porch. They look like deflated balloons. But I know they'll show themselves again next year ... and the year after that.

 The plant provides a lesson in humility. This plant itself is one of the ugliest we have. It is spindly and lank and has a hard time standing up under the weight of its one branches. But inside courses a beauty that seems not to come from these thin branches but from somewhere entirely removed.The heart of all matters is deeply hidden.

Later: The eighth bud bloomed last night (see dates below the pix) and that will do it for this go-round. Even so, Tom discovered two new buds on the plant. Can we even imagine that it will bloom again this summer? That'd be the third time.

08/11/20 - 10:02 PM 

08/11/20 - 10:32 PM 

08/12/20 - 7:35 AM

Moonflower blooms

 The past week or so our Moonflower has bloomed reservedly. But I could see last night was going to be special. There were buds everywhere. And so this morning I walked out and found  ten gorgeous blooms.

 Last year I noted the plant blooming on 09/04/19. Check it out here.

 Unlike our Night Blooming Cereus, this plant keeps its flowers open well into the day. It seems to take actual sunshine to make them close. Both, though, bloom only at night.

 The fully open flower in the back is a gorgeous pure white while the bud (foreground) is ivory at best and almost "dirty". It spirals open something akin to the mechanism of an inside-out umbrella. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we got the idea for an umbrella.

 This bud is ready for tonight. And there are many more.

 So it's blooming a little earlier than last year. I grew these from seeds from last year's plant so while it is not the same plant, it is its progeny.