Friday, November 12, 2010

Macro flowers: Epiphillum, mid night glory









I have joined this meme for a while now, and I am loving it. First I love flowers. Second, the badge for this meme is the North Borneo Orchid.

Join Macro Flowers Saturday, a photo meme for macro photos and close-ups of flowers, garden flowers, wildflowers, blossoms, flowers with insects and butterflies (no insects without flowers), flowers with raindrops and whatever beautiful plants, plant seeds or berries you have, in close-up.

First time visitors, please read the rules. They are simple but I do ask that you, please, use a MFS badge or link back to MFS in some way. Thank you.

Macro Flower Saturday
Bluberry craft and hobby time

http://blueberrycraftandhobbytime.blogspot.com/p/join-my-photo-challenge-flowers-on.html

Epiphyllum "upon the leaf" in Greek) is a genus of 19 species of epiphytic plants in the cactus family (Cactaceae), native to Central America. Common names for these species include orchid cacti and leaf cacti.
The stems are broad and flat, 1-5 cm broad, 3-5 mm thick, usually with lobed edges. The flowers are large, 8-16 cm diameter, white to red, with numerous petals.
The fruit is edible.


The Chinese call them mid night glory. I had to post these flowers photos to do justice to such a beautiful flower.,

This succulent plant blooms around mid night, and closes shortly after. So if you miss it, you miss it.

In Borneo, the Mid night Glory blooms once in a few years and usually only a single bloom. People regard it as an sign of good luck. They will buy the lottery when they see this flower bloom.

A friend holds a party and invites friends especially friends from overseas to see this unusual miracle.

My Dad had this plant, and he always took them upstairs into the house so we all could appreciate them. The bloom slowly opens around 10 pm so that we could watch before we went to bed. Then at mid night it closes. Never to bloom for a few years.

Once, my parents miscalculated the time, the next morning, Mum found that the flowered had already bloomed.

In Australia, however, my brother Joseph's plant blooms numerous flowers often. May be that is why I am enjoying my holiday in the land of the rich and famous. Joseph's plants have many flowers.

You can boil soup with it. My friend in Singapore has a few plants. people from very far away ask her for it. You can boil it in a sweet syrup and they believe it is a good medicine for asthma sufferers.

To me, it is a plant I think of Mum and Dad.

6 comments:

Maia said...

They are very beautiful, so exotic. Lovely shots.

Joanne Olivieri said...

How unusually exotic and fascinating. You can boil soup with them? What wonderful shots and I really enjoyed this post.

Jama said...

My neighbour have this plant which bloom recently but I only managed to photographed the flower in daytime and miss the midnight bloom. I remembered I had them in my kampung house as a child and the whole family stayed up late just to watch it bloom.

Maia T said...

Amazing shots and the blossoms are gorgeous.
I saw some videos on YouTube, people start their cameras over night to capture the flowering.
It's a pity that it blooms so seldom.

Unknown said...

Ann that's a great post! first I have to buy that flower and then when it blooms I will buy lottery ticket :) thanks for all the great information, that's a beautiful flower!

Thank you for linking
I see that the button is not working for you, I've noticed that sometimes if the whole code is not copied it won't work, you can always just copy the image itself and add the the hypelink, hopefully it will work next time
have a lovely day

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