Zeb has flowers!

[hwango]

Zeb, my succulent from Colorado, has flowers! That's so cool! I usually don't have much luck getting my cacti and succulents to flower. The zygocacti and haworthia are the only other ones that flower for me. I had hoped some of the little growths on the sides of Zeb would turn out to open into flowers, but I had no idea what they'd look like.

Comments

[lconover.livejournal.com]

That's so cool! From the picture, it looks like there's at least one more blossom on the way. :)

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are actually 2 buds on one of the other...stalks? Arms? = ) It's actually very flowery on that table right now, since the Christmas cacti near it seem to be confused about the time of year, and are also about to flower. Maybe it's peer pressure.

[krzzl.livejournal.com]

Yay, go Zeb! How's your saugaro of doom doing btw? (I know I spelled that wrong...)

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Sadly, saguaro #2 shrivelled up, and saguaro #1 is still the wrong color, but I'm hoping that's a 'winter dormancy' thing, since it still looked the right shape last time I saw it. I'm also hoping to plant some more in spring and see if I have better luck. It might have been extra hard for them to be sprouting at the wrong time of year.

[chromatophile.livejournal.com]

Interesting; what species is Zeb? He looks like an asclepiad (a plant in the milkweed family) but his flowers are so tiny and delicate; succulent asclepiads usually have large, colorful, strangely shaped, and often putrid-smelling flowers. Does he have milky sap? I am now getting ready to go on a rampage of information gathering, because not knowing the identity of a plant or animal tends to drive me insane.

While I'm on the subject of asclepiads, I'd like to recommend the Persian Carpet Flower, Edithcolea grandis. (http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Asclepiadaceae/Edithcolea_grandis.html) If you think you have enough skill to grow this beauty, go for it; it's definitely worth it!

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Well, the tag is a bit garbled, but someone over on the succulents group managed to straighten out that q'iaq'ia must be Quaqua, and that makes him a Quaqua Incarnata. I didn't smell his flower, so if it stinks of rotting meat then it isn't very strong. I don't know if his sap is milky, since I haven't done anything to make him bleed.

The Persian Carpet Flower looks very cool (both plant and flower). I still have mixed luck with my succulents, though, so I'd better not try anything really tricky. Some of them do great, but others mysteriously perish on me. Like Tiger Jaws. I don't know why, but they don't like me. I don't think I've ever had one make it a full year. My Brain Cactus, on the other hand, has been a loyal friend for many years and has grown to be 7 inches across. So who knows?

I moved Zeb out of the South window because he was getting a bit scorched. However, the day after I did this his flower closed up, and the other ones he has haven't opened. I hope I didn't overcompensate or something.