Night Bloomer ready to pop.

  This afternoon when I came in from Panola range.  You can see them loosen up when they are getting ready to go.  Like this.

Night-Blooming Cereus

 Just missed.  Had a post planned and the buds beat me by a night.  Three blooms this week.  They start about 10:00pm and wilt under the light of dawn.  The plant is a member of the cactus family.  Flowers smell like ginger and lemon.  Mediterranean.  I don't know what polinates it here.

  This one is wilted in the rain from Gustav.  The buds start off about 1/3 banana size and shape and fold back on themselves making a big white snowball.  Many vaguely sexual-looking things inside.  Stamens.  Pistils.  God knows.

  Mine is from a cutting out of Mary Burton (God) across the street.  Hers used to put out a bloom once ever year, starting after she had the plant for a decade.  I manned up and gave my cutting plenty of dirt and fertilizer, hit it with a little bloom-or-bust flower food and got 10-20 blooms four or five times annually, clustered around the spring and fall.

  Mark Baldwin had a nice one that belonged to his lovely wife Susan up in Surry.  I repotted it while I was there.  Hope it gets a warm place to sit and some light for the winter.