The amazing beauty of Echinopsis 24 hour flowers...

...and a great new surprise was waiting for their turn to bloom.

A miracle appeared over 3 days, and I will show you in detail below what happened.

I was always happy to get only one of these magnificent flowers that blooms overnight and dies in the late afternoon. They last for one day only.

Echinopsis oxygona is known for having huge, showy flowers at the ends of long tubes which are connected to the cactus. The flower has a sweet smell. The flower opens in the evening and wilts the next afternoon on hot days. It grows well in full sun, or light shade. These cacti can stand strong heat, and even temperatures as low as −10 °C (14 °F). Usually these are outdoor plants. They are used to the dry, desert climate, so they do not need to be watered every day.

In cultivation in the UK this plant has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit

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Day 1, and only one flower, but you can see behind it that another 4 were waiting to bloom. So, when we saw the stems and the buds, we did not know if they all would bloom. But Mother nature had other ideas, as she decided to surprise us with a beautiful flower show.

This is what it looked like at night on my camera flash, and it died in the afternoon.

Day 2, and 4 new flowers appeared overnight to replace the one that died.

There were 8 flower stems waiting to bloom during the coming night.

Beautiful aren't they?

Day 3, now look at this! 11 new flowers appeared.

And finally, the show was over, as later in the afternoon they all died.

16 flowers that we had altogether and now we have to wait until next year to see them again, and in the meantime, we will take care of the cactus plants. Thankfully they are hardy plants that do not require much attention, and if they are planted in an ideal spot, then they will flourish. One can also easily take them out to plant them elsewhere.

This is the closest echinopsis species that we could find compared to our ones.

Echinopsis oxygona grows singly or in groups. The spherical to short cylindrical, dark green shoots reach heights of growth of up to 75 cm (30 in) with a diameter of 12 to 15 cm (4.7 to 5.9 in). There are eleven to twelve sharp-edged, wavy ribs that are deeply notched. The white to gray or black areoles located on them are up to 2 cm (0.79 in) apart. Yellowish spines emerge from them, which have a darker tip. The three to four strong central spines are up to 3.5 cm (1.4 in) long. The up to 20 unequal, protruding radial spines have a length of up to 2.5 cm (0.98 in). Plants produce white flowers that open at night. Flowers are up to 24 cm (9.4 in) long and have a diameter of 10 cm (3.9 in)

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I hope that you enjoyed the flower show and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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