Thursday, December 06, 2007

Cactus De Noël

I think the Christmas Cactus is more often called by its genus name, schlumbergera, in France than by the translation of the common American name. But I did see the term cactus de noël on the French Wikipedia site.

The upstairs baby schlumbergera is blooming right now.

Whatever you choose to call it, one of ours is in full flower right now. It's a new plant that Ken made by collecting bits from older plants and sticking them into potting soil. There are actually two varieties in this same pot.

As you probably know, this forest cactus blooms when the days get shorter in the fall. Diminishing daylight causes the plant to set its flowers. You can force flowers any time of year by putting the plant in a dark place for a while.

The hot pink flowers really brighten up the room on these dark fall days.

One of the varieties in this pot has whitish-pink flowers that bloomed about a month ago. Now the hot pink variety is displaying its blossoms. We have two much bigger plants down in our entry way. One of them bloomed in February 2006 earning it the nickname President's Day Cactus (the link takes you to the picture that I put on the blog back then).

But both of those seem to be covered in buds now, so they should be blooming right around Christmas this year.

5 comments:

  1. have a very ludic christmas. they're adorable.

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  2. That'll be some sight! Hope you think of taking a photo then.
    Claude from Blogging in Paris

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  3. Funny how your photos make a plant look better than it probably looks in real life.

    I was wondering if cyclamen are a holiday plant in France the way they are here?

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  4. Anonymous, one point of photography is to capture the beauty of the world that people might not otherwise see. Isn't it? It's not that the plants and flowers are less beautiful than what the photo shows, it's just that we might not have seen the beauty otherwise. My two cents...

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  5. I've had a few of these... I didn't know they were of the cactus family. Does that mean I can still revive the terribly wilted one that is in my office?

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