I have had this Cactus since for about 12 years or since it was 12" tall. It is currently around 4 foot tall. I have seen one more like this years ago, the person that gave me the bug to start raising Cactus, his was about as tall as mine is now and he told me it was a mutation of a common species...I can't find a name for it anywhere on the internet - really don't know where to start looking. Reason I am interested now... He had told me that it wouldn't bloom until it was 40 years old...well, mine had it's first bloom this weekend. I have about 4 other blooms and want to know if this is a nocternal bloom or what? I watched it like a hawk for 3 days and seem to have missed it fully open. I had checked it the night before and it was just starting to unfural the outer edges...then the next morning it looked has if it was about to open, and by 10 am it looked like it was wilting. So I am curious if it opened over night and was closing in the morning? Any help is greatly appreciated! antoine
Without checking if the last reply was correct, I'll add that it is a "monstrous" form of cactus. It looks like it could be a cereus or myrtillocactus geometrizans. A picture of the open flower could be useful to make a positive ID. Compare a close up of geometrizan spines with what you can see on your plant. Waz
It looks very like the oldfashioned "Cereus peruvianus monstrosus". If you follow the classification given by Anderson in his monumental book 'The Cactus Family' (2001), the C. "peruvianus" of gardens should now be called C. hildmannianus subsp. uruguayanus, and this is a monstrose form of it. Myrtillocactus geometrizans has flowers rather smaller in relation to stem size than those visible in your pic.
Floer suggests that it is certainly not Opuntia. I agree with TonyR, that it may be "Cereus peruvianus monstrosus".
your plant is one variety of cereus peruvianus monstrose Var forbesii also called ming thing others here: http://www.columnar-cacti.org/cereus/index.html there are other small sized plants considered cereus as well Cereus 'tetragonus' monstrose and also a mini cereus monstrose the pics are of specimens i have of the last 2 im still looking for your variety and some of the others in the link. also an added pic of a myrtillo cactus crest i just got for future reference
The cactus is Cereus peruvianus monstrosus, as identified by TonyR above. It is a night bloomer, the flowers of which close next morning. Friut is edible but not as good as the non monstrosus species. We have a very large plant in our garden which has fruit on it now (8/09). Also there are several at the UCR Botanic gardens. Very easy to propagate from cuttings. Have a number for sale at the next plant sale.
