FLOWERS

By Mary

Every year I look forward to seeing the cacti in bloom. They are amazing!! Someone that has never seen it just can't really imagine the diversity of flowers they produce. Rex took a walk with the camera and came back with some "cactus in bloom" shots. Enjoy!!

These are actually oleander and people in the west use them as hedge plants. Right now they are loaded with flowers that go from deep red, to dark pink, light pink, and white. They are beautiful.

These orange flowers on a type of ocotillo cactus. I don't know how you tell the difference between them, but a lot of cacti fall into this category.

I don't know what the type of cacti this is but the yellow flowers are cool and I have often wondered if the "yellow rose of Texas" actually refers to yellow cactus flowers.

Prickly pear with more yellow flowers !


I don't know what this is either, but the plant is about 8 feet tall and it must have at least 75 flower buds on it. These flowers actually bloom during the night and die as soon as the sun comes up. One year I spent about two weeks setting my alarm for 6AM so I wouldn't miss the flowers. It was a futile effort because for whatever reason, that year the buds just burned up and never opened.

This masterpiece is what those flower buds in the previous picture turn into. When we came home from work last night, about 5 of them were opened. Really beautiful!!