Friday 25 May 2012

1 pic a day 2012, May 24th: Easter Cactus

Easter Cactus by torresk
Easter Cactus, a photo by torresk on Flickr.
There is a lot of confusion surrounding Easter and Christmas cacti, apparently. If I understand correctly, Christmas cacti are Schlumbergera while Easter cacti are Hatiora. Mr. Subjunctive has a great profile on Schlumbergeras.

I'm pretty sure this is an Easter cactus; the timing is right, and the shape of the flowers matches what I have read. These have radial symmetry, as opposed to Christmas cacti, which show bilateral symmetry.

Anyway, the flowers are gorgeous. You can see the similarity with "traditional" cacti; I posted a picture of Mammillaria a few days ago, and the flowers look almost the same, except for the size.

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