Floralia - Selenicereus pteranthus, az éj hercegnője

The genus Selenicereus is known for its emblematic night flowers. Botanists do not agree in that Selenicereus pteranthus is an independent taxon within the grandiflorus group, because the amount of the herbarium plant material from natural origin is not large enough for the determination. I got the first cutting in 1998. For 2002 it reached the 160 cm in height. Due to the heaviness of the stems, a large part of the plant was broken in 2009. Then I decided to grow the plant under garden conditions and re-potted the plant from its 15 cm diameter pot to a 50 cm diameter tub. In the May of 2012 I noticed some woolly areoles on the plants for the first. It opened its first three flowers in the July of 2012. In 2013, it developed 10 buds of which 6 have opened on three nights following each other. In 2014, around 14 buds started to grow, of which 9 has opened altogether, where the 4 flowers were the highest number on a single night. Nevertheless, the real flower festival was in 2015. Around 27 buds started to grow and on the 16th of July, 2015, 16 giant flowers opened covering the men-height plant completely and searching for the moonlight. Some buds opened on the following night, one of them on the same night when my S. grandiflorus plant opened its single flower in 2015. Thus, I got the chance for the cross pollination that proved to be successful.