Agaveville

One of my Cereus sp. showing its appreciation for the monsoon rains, high humidity, and slightly lower temperatures, but putting on a flower show: Not sure about which Cereus species this is, regardless the flower show is always impressive and an enormous attraction for bees.

Wow, it's going to town! How long do the individual flowers last? Are they "here today, gone tomorrow", or do they stick around for a little while?

That's really lovely.

So beautiful. Bet it's nice sitting out there these days. Thanks for sharing this.

Thx!

Unfortunately these flowers do not last very long even in the best of conditions. They are mostly open at night - fully open some time between 10 PM to midnight and they generally last into the morning - closing completely when the sun hits them full bore. However in those few hours of morning that they are open they are absolute bee magnets. From the big carpenter bees to tiny little solitary bees. I have on occasion had a flower make an attempt to open for a second night, but that is never really anything you'd want to document with a camera.

They make lemon sized red fruit that is sweet and good to eat if you can protect them from all the birds that really like them too.

Right now the evenings and mornings would be great to be out there if it was not for all the mosquitos that came along with the monsoon. We have had some previously around this time of year, but this year they are terrible - we got lots of rain so probably a lot more standing water around for them to breed in. Our neighborhood has quite a few snowbird properties that are empty for the summer, so any standing water not being taken care of quickly is of course a perfect breeding ground for the mosquitos and having a bunch of trees and tall bushes in the yard makes for a nice hiding spot for them during the day.

Beautiful flower show!