My Night Bloom Cactus; First Flowering
The journey with my cacti is becoming The Never-Ending Story
in a thorny version. Every time I think I couldn't be surprised by
these prickly creatures any more, they find another way to twist
and wriggle around a new corner and throw me off my
equilibrium.
Cacti at the Pine View Nursery in Kalimpong
After the sensory overload at the Pinewood Nursery in
Kalimpong, I was looking forward to a quiet pleasant summer-
monsoon windfall of golden-yellow Mammillaria blooms.
Familiar, the emphasis is on ‘familiar’. The same pots, the same
plants, the same little greeny little balls of spiny exuberance that
I have watched flourish over the last four years. My Mammillaria
breed like the proverbial rabbits. (I have never seen rabbits
breed). But they overflow the spiny cornucopia, if there is one,
and push at the boundaries of all my planters, pots, containers -
fancy ceramic, baked clay, cheap plastic, what have you. They
pay no attention whatsoever to the rest of their race, chugging
on inch by microinch around them. In the cactus nursery, they
are the brats, screaming, flashy, in-your-face.
But then, in this, as in the rest of Life, there is a triangle, a Third
Corner, an Other. A moment of unexpected blinding beauty that
is gone as soon as it comes and slips through your fingers
leaving regret in its wake. Regret and awe. Or is it gratitude
cloaked in these? Remember The Bridges of Madison County?
Enter The Night Bloom in my cactus corner. One I didn’t know
I had. A quiet well-behaved slim green plodder that has steadily
gained inches since it came to live with me. Last night I saw it in
bloom, in a way I never had before. In a way, I have never seen
any plant bloom before. Huge creamy-white flowers made up of
whorl upon whorl of delicate petals brimming over with rich
pollen. From six in the evening when the petals were just shyly
opening till late at night, I watched and watched and watched its
bold unapologetic unfurling and blooming in awe. Between 8
and 9 pm, it was at the pinnacle of its glory. Mature, voluptuous,
all-conquering.
Blooming in progress, photos taken between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
This morning I rushed, half-asleep to witness its wilted glory. In
the dawn, the flowers were just closing, as if still in the throes of
their lovers’ dreams. By dusk, their secrets were no longer open
to the world. Only a hint of white and scarlet remained. Already
their proud beauty had withered.
Night fell again. With its patient, tedious, inevitability.
I waited. And waited and waited. And waited some more.
The flowers remained firmly closed.
Here is what the internet says about night-blooming cacti.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-blooming_cereus
2. https://www.thespruce.com/types-of-night-blooming-
cereus-5186687
3. https://a-z-animals.com/plants/night-blooming-cactus/
There are some, it is written, which bloom only after their fourth or fifth year of growth.
Once a year, on one single night of magic. Only one.
But look closely at the pictures.
There is a bud. I can wait some more.
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