Melocactus matanzanus. Remember this?
Were those spent flowers? Well, that's what I thought, but -- wrong! They were buds hanging around long enough to show me what they were up to. Guess this silly student wasn't paying attention in class, and I was corrected yesterday afternoon:
From today, here's what spent matanzanus flowers look like:
I had to go back and review my photo archive from last year. What were my observations back then? Now I remember -- while the buds do actually announce themselves, they can hide in the cephalium for quite awhile before they go into flower. After taking another good look at last spring's photos, perhaps even more than I realized at the time. The flowers I saw yesterday were a bit shy about opening up all the way, but I'm still amazed to see them in February. If SoCal delivers a nice hot summer this year, the matanzanus could be on track for more flowers than I've seen since I got it in the summer of 2011. And they won't be shy about it, either.
Next, here's my red-headed Irishman. From today, and no mystery about what those buds have been up to:
I took the above photos at about 2 p.m., that's 3 flowers. Then give it another half-hour, and we'll get 4:
Awww, the Irishman's making a smiley face!
The next one was a complete surprise, and I soooo misjudged how long it would take for the chief bud on my Strombocactus disciformis to flower. I was thinking sometime in March? Nope, try this weekend. The flower opened about halfway yesterday afternoon:
Today fully open, and this flower beats the first one out of the bud that came with the plant in July:
I'll join Ian in being surprised about the disciformis setting buds this early in the year. However, I'm doubly surprised to see the plant go from bud to flower so fast. I dunno, maybe my daytime highs earlier in the week had something to do with it:
And finally, I'll end this presentation with my Gymnocalycium stenopleurum. Not much of a surprise there since the bud got big enough to place it in the "any day now" category. Thought this might be during the week, but today was the day:
Gymnos really need the summer heat for wide-open flowering, so this is as open as the present bloom will go. However, stenopleurum seems to be a real trooper with a steady supply of buds that won't give up. It's one of the characteristics I really enjoy about the species, and I'm sure it'll give me another wonderful summer display. By the way, there's a brand-new bud I didn't even notice until after I snapped the pic you just saw!
What a wonderful Presidents' Day weekend this has been! Happy PD, my fellow Muricans!
