garden beauty

You all know how much I like "close-ups"...and also, how much I love color, too. So, getting in close on these Cereus Flowers shows an incredible amount of variation of color.... These flowers open wide at night and stay open somewhat in the early part of the day....These flowers are a bit slower to close up than some other Night Blooming Cereus...... The delicacy and transparency of these petals is quite astounding....And yet, they have a solid feel to the touch.....I love the very white white of these petals but then when you take a closer look, there is a great variation....this kind of slight pinkness and tanness, and even a pale lavenderness..... And then, as you can see from the picture above, the outside protective leaves can be a dark red to magenta to reddish brown...to----in some cases, a shocking pink! And then...out of seemingly nowhere--there will be this yellow to green in the petals.....And of course, at the bottom of the flower is the green of the stem of the flower.... I love seeing those little stamens and pistols(?) there, right in the middle of the flower...... You can even see a little bit of purple that has crept in on the edges of those petals, as this bloom is closing up and dying, before our eyes......The cycle of life......But, what is left, after the flower completely dries up and gets ready to drop to the ground, is the beginning of the fruit that comes after..... And there above, you can see the flowers that have dried up and a couple of flowers that are still somewhat open, and two flowers that are still in the growing stage----not yet even quite recognizable as the flowers they will become....You might want to click on all of these to be able to see them bigger..... And above, those many green bulbous things are the not quite ripe fruits that develop and ripen within a few weeks after the flower dies and falls to the ground....These are the fruits that the Finches just love to chomp on.... The abundance of Flowers and Fruit each year is remarkable! I've tasted this fruit and it is absolutely delicious....! You can see the interior of the fruit in the picture above....It is a Beautiful Deep Shocking Pink.....! And so you can see what a beautiful flower starts all this---here below is one of these Cereus Flowers, one night when it was wide open! And below....a closer look at a really lush flower taken one night, this past summer.....So very delicate, and so very beautiful.....for one night, once a year....


More To Come......