Can't help you with the name. We found CactiGuide.com when we were looking for proper names of some of the things we find growing here. Feel kind of ashamed posting these gnarly jungle pictures. Most folks on the board keep their friends in attractive solitary pots - and some REALLY nice looking one...

this fellow got in a turf war with a crepe myrtle bush DSCF2492a.JPG and went on the offensive with a huge number of buds DSCF2492b.jpg we watched every day, and this morning were rewarded at 3:00 AM DSCF2520a.JPG contra usual, the blooms were still open two hours after sunrise DSCF2539a.JPG but a p...

Another one came out this morning. Didn't get a good shot of the face; when I went out again, just before sunup, the flower was already closing and wilting. Maybe frightened by the flash.

Thanks, Pilif. I'll go with the Acanthocereus tetragonus. These stems have three lobes, and 'tetra' would suggest four as proper, but Wikipedia says three to five is good. The flower petals are more numerous and more flacid than other night bloomers we have seen; the pollen stems are in a dense cent...

Seem to open and bloom for only one day; open pre-dawn and close when the sun appears. Captured them this morning at urging of Wife, who got up early to water her treasures. Some kind of Harrisia, maybe?

That's really nice! We've got a stick cactus in the front garden, blooms are only good for one day and already semi-wilted by the time I get out of bed. I'd need some determination (do-able) and a good bounce flash and reflective umbrella (which I don't have). Echinopsis by our door is much more coo...

Saturday, 6 July 2013

Thanks. Should have known it was not a cactus. Wife is the plant person, but I'm getting to know and like them more time passes.

shu

Don't know where this one came from. Wife says it was a little nubbin in a pot we were bringing another plant in. Whatever, if wife sees something green she sticks it in the ground and makes it grow. Couple of days ago we noticed this large pod-like growth, about 5 cm across. This morning the 'pod' ...

Looks like a one-day show. All gone this morning. P1260703b.jpg But there may be more flowering cycles this season. Withered flower at the top of the developed fruit. At the base of yesterday's flower, now withering, is a developing fruit. Also visible are some buds for the next flower cycle. What I...

We gathered several of the fruit when we first noticed them a few weeks ago - taking care to do so in the morning when they are likely to be most suculent. They were entirely bland. No flavor or sweetness at all. Perhaps if we were to water and fertilize the plants.... The few times I have tried wil...

Wife says this is the same one, she took a cutting from some months ago, planted in good soil in sun and waters every day. Has grown fat, twisty, and spines seem to come in cluster rather than single or double from each node.

-shu

No idea what these are. I'll be happy to take your guess. It's 1030 now. The bees are gone so I can get closer - but of course the flowers are all closed too. The ants seem not to have taken much interest in the fruit either, after digging through the skin.
-shu

We've lived in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas for ten years, and I've always been mildly annoyed at the patch of stick cactus at the base of one of the mesquite trees in the back pasture. Not so the wife, of course, who loves all things green or growing - no matter how stiff or thorny. DSCF520...

Can't argue with that advice. Had not occurred to us to buy another; we'd never seen anything like these for sale, and always considered it somewhat of a rarity. Meanwhile, we may try putting this one in some drier, more cactus-like soil to see if it kicks out some pups. We'd hate to lose it, has be...