Imagine my surprise the other day when I stepped out into the garden for the first time in a busy week and looked up and saw one of these large flowers staring down at me!
They are huge. I have this giant cactus plant, you see, over twelve feet tall in places, 
and these are its flowers. (Click on photo at right for larger.) For a long time of the Summer, it had these sort of hairy tufts on the top of some of its stalks, and I thought “oh, how nice, that is what its flowers are like” (forgetting that I must have seen them in other years, I suppose), and then forgot all about it.
I think that I may have given the plant a bit of a generous drink of water accidentally because I was washing off a ton of sticky fig juice off the fig tree which is next to it, and I suspect that as result these guys just popped out sideways from the branches (the tufts sort of brushed aside) and bloomed. Bang! Just like that. They lasted a few days, and then they all faded and wilted.
And boy! – They are marvellous indeed. Click on the thumbnail on the left for another look at the intricate detail of its internal structure. But it’s a bit sad that they have all gone so soon.
The things you see just outside your door in Los Angeles…
-cvj
just got those big white flowers on a cactus last 2 nights in aus
good to look at what a supprise
Hi,
No, I don’t think I know a flower of that sort at that size. Sounds lovely though.
Cheers,
-cvj
Hi. That’s a beaute. I have a friend who has one of those huge cactus trees (I call ’em) in his yard. Geez, it looks like yours. Hmmm…maybe you’re him. Anyway, a lady gave me a cutting from some large succulent/cactus-type plant about 4 years ago. It has just produced flowers this Spring and boy, are they beautiful. They are almost as big as my hand and pink. They look like giant Christmas cactus flowers. You have any idea what they are? I’d like to find out more about the plant on the internet, but GIANT CACTUS FLOWER didn’t produce any results I could use (tee hee).
Really? [blushes] … Who knew?
-cvj
trichocereus pachanoi eh?… wow, those are amazing blossoms and beautiful rich stalks. Worth a great deal of money actually for both its horticultural uses as well as its ethnopharamcopial use. That sort of healthy growth will not happen up here in the Northwest. I haven’t seen a plant that well tended and happy in nearly 30 years.
Short-lived flowers are the best, such as lilies that only bloom in the morning. They don’t stick around long enough for you to take them for granted. Thanks for the pretty pictures.