It seems there aren't many pictures of this species in bloom online, so I had no idea what to expect. I was under the impression that Ihlenfeldtzia vanzylii is a winter grower and blooms during the cool season, but for some reason, it opened up here in northern California in June (our summer)! At first, the outer leaves started to shrivel up and I thought the plant was starting to go dormant, so the frequency of watering decreased. Then, new growth bursted out of the middle with a flower bud, so it was confusing what to do....water it and risk rot because it's going dormant, or stop watering and just let it shrivel down? I ended up doing something in between:water but not very often. We've had very abnormal weather up here: super hot days, and then weeks on end that are abnormally cold and windy. In fact, it's hot, cold, hot, cold, windy, then we get heat waves!
The flower only opens during the day and then closes at night. I couldn't detect a strong scent, but there's something there...very light. Photos taken June 11, 2016:
At first, I thought I was doing something wrong because the leaf tips all of the sudden out of nowhere started turning brown. They eventually died down half way, but the remaining half is still much very alive.....so weird!
