Allow me to introduce you to another fabulous female in my life - her common name is Queen of the Night (lol nothing common about that!), but her botanical name is Epiphyllum Oxypetalum. For most of the year, she is a rather tatty looking cactus, but once the warmer weather in September comes around, she produces several crops of the most magnificent flowers until about the end of March. Usually one or two at a time, but however many there are, there's a catch - they bloom...
...for one night only!
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| I'm so proud of this photo! - it was taken with my 8mpx phone camera, and my makeup light positioned behind her.. |
The whole concept of a plant that flowers under the cover of darkness (and withers by morning) fascinates me. Why does she keep her beauty hidden from all except her devoted followers? I'm saying that because unless you watch her closely, AND stay up late, you can easily miss the whole glorious event. As you can see, her flower is extraordinarily stunning, but that's only half the story - the fragrance she produces is like no other, potent, heady and sweet with a tinge of astringency, and it wraps itself around you, stays with you for hours after you've breathed it in...
Round one was about a month ago when she produced two flowers (which I missed!), but for her second attempt this season I was blessed with five blooms that opened on the same night - oh my, what an amazing show, and what a festival of fragrance! I could smell the perfume in every room of the house :-)
Here's how she starts - you know when she's about to pop because her alien-looking bud starts to swell, and the outer pink petals begin to curl backwards...
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| Photo taken around 8pm |
These pics were taken roughly every 20 minutes or so, until she opened fully...
Here she is full-frontal, in all her glory...
Closeups of her inner beauty...
And the whole plant at around 11pm, when sadly I just HAD to retire...
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| All the above photos feature the flower on the left |
And here she is next morning...
Her transformation from weird looking Triffid to magical bloom is nothing short of miraculous. Sigh...but all that effort and magnificence...just for a few hours? Nature truly is mysterious ♥
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S E V E R Y O N E !
Take care of you,
kats xxx
Wow! She really is a beauty. Those photos are magnificent Kats thank you so much for sharing them with us. What a shame that you can completely miss the whole event if you are not vigilant.
ReplyDeleteI wish you a magnificent and happy Christmas and hope that 2014 is all you hope for. Lots of love Kate xx
Thanks Kate - this was quite a coup to catch her on film! Some nights she has flowered it's been pouring with rain, and standing around with a camera and trying to balance an umbrella has been quite a challenge. This is the first time I've had her on a sheltered balcony, so hopefully I'll be able to see more of her shows in future :-) My very best wishes to you and your beautiful family for Christmas and the New Year hon xxx
DeleteWhat a glorious blog Kats and such incredible camera work!!! You should be very proud of your efforts. It is a beautiful way to wish us all a Happy Christmas and we wish back to you and your family a wonderful Christmas time.
ReplyDeleteWith much love,
Trish.
Oh you are kind Trish honey - such lovely comments. Despite your sadness over the devastating loss of Tara, I hope your day was a special one, and that your heart is healing ♥
DeleteKat this is just so amazing! I think I'm going to have to hunt one of these out for mum because she would really get a kick out of a plant like this. Thank you so much for the post, I can see a lot of hard work went in to this.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas love!
Hailey dear, I do so hope you can find it at a nursery - my Mum gave me a cutting of her plant almost 30 years ago, that's how long I've had it! And thank you so much for appreciating this post about something very precious to me xxx
DeleteKat,
ReplyDeleteMy family in Singapore used to have a plant like this but for the life of me, the local name evades me. It only flowered at night. I think there is also a childhood story attached to this plant that while the flower is open, yearned for dreams can become reality.
When I was in school, the story went that a young girl missed her departed grandmother. However, she had to wait until this flower opened. When it did, her grandmother was there as if she had not left but slowly faded away with the "fading" of the flower as day dawned.
Arty Girl
bh.artygirl@gmail.com
I've just remembered the name but I don't quite know the correct spelling. My family called it "Kheng Hua".
ReplyDeleteArty Girl
Oh sweetheart, thank you SO much for contributing this information - I just googled the name and it's definitely the same plant. What a beautiful story! I have some Chinese friends who told me that steeping this flower in hot water makes a tea that has health benefits too. It's really quite a remarkable gift from nature :-)
DeleteWOW! What a beautiful flower. I've never seen one before sweety, thanks so much for sharing her :-)
ReplyDeleteIt would be worth staying up for the night just to sit beside her and watching her blossom. How amazing.
And your photography is beautiful. You've captured her beauty perfectly. I love looking at the pic of her slowly opening up.
I bet your mum loves her too :-)
Hey Gemma she's a stunner that's for sure - I took over 150 shots from different angles, and it was incredibly hard to choose which ones to post here. I videoed a time-lapse of her blooming a couple of years ago - if I get around to it I'll redo it (without the copyrighted music) and post it publicly, it's quite something to behold. Yes it's very dear to my Mum's heart and she's given cuttings to many friends & neighbours over the years - her plant had 18 flowers on it one night, whoa!
Delete18!!! Holy smokes.
DeleteI've been thinking since this morning what your beautiful flowers remind me of. It's just hit me. I don't know why but this is the kind of flower I imagine would come to life and sing and dance at night....just like the flowers from Alice in Wonderland. This flower would be a Princess I think :-)
I reckon you're spot on Gemma, although I've never been able to stay awake all night to check lol. But when she blooms on a still night with no wind, you can actually see the stem swaying. Personally I think the seeds came from a galaxy far far away...
DeleteOnly catching up now but that is amazing. I'd be watching that flower all day just waiting for it to appear. Is that like the flower that was in the Movie Dennis the Menace.....Mr. Wilson was waiting for the flower to open.
ReplyDeleteIt really is such a shame that it only comes out once but definitely a WOWWWWWWWWW.
Lol Mandy I haven't seen Dennis the Menace, but I've just read how it takes 40 years to flower, and then dies seconds later - the Queen isn't quite that bad, but it's a similar circumstance. I'm kinda hoping she has another round of blooms before Autumn, but she might have exhausted herself with this set of 5 - fingers crossed though ♥
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