Brasiliopuntia first flowers after 12 years

midnite · Post by **midnite** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:19 am

I've had this Brasiliopuntia for about 12 years, no flowers until now. Not sure if it's because i gave it a stricter winter rest this year, global sort-of-warming affecting me here in Sweden, adding extra fertilizer or if it's just getting old enough to flower. It started out as a single un-rooted pad given to me and is now an as-tall-as-me cactus-tree in a corner and more bush-like plant on my window sill. It's the one on the window sill that now has given me 2 beautiful ~6 cm yellow flowers for the first time.

Anyone know if Brasiliopuntia is self-fertile?

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:31 am

spectacular!

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:34 am

Very beautiful! No idea on the fertility. I hope you do get fruits because they look pretty wild.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:26 am

Nice!

I would love to see the whole plant.

Arjen · Post by **Arjen** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 5:09 am

me too! stunning flowers!

m4rkz0r · Post by **m4rkz0r** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:51 pm

Very nice! Do you have pictures of the whole plant?

apfire · Post by **apfire** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 2:48 pm

Very nice plant. I would definitely like to see the whole plant also.

midnite · Post by **midnite** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:25 pm

Thanks guys, here are some shots of the plants themselves.

Flowering bushy one, looks mostly like a normal opuntia:

The one living in the corner is darker and shows it actually wants to be a tree:

With a nice spine-protected trunk:

It's very pot-bound and also there's not much light higher up, so with only minimal trimming i have managed to keep it to a reasonable size for an indoor plant.

Christer Johansson · Post by **Christer Johansson** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:34 pm

To me it looks more like O. monacantha, but that's just me

r_shazrin · Post by **r_shazrin** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 4:28 pm

spectacular yellow flowers

midnite · Post by **midnite** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 4:45 pm

Christer, it could be, i've never been 100% about the id. It does have some long sort of cylindrical segments, longest up to 50cm, but doesn't exactly match any photos i've googled.

Like this:

apfire · Post by **apfire** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 8:53 pm

Very nice looking plants! I like!

Post by **daiv** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:32 am

I don't think that round stemmed plant is O. monacantha, but I can see why Christer suggests it for the other.