Saturday, December 24, 2011

My Christmas Cactus Blooms On Time!

I have this lovely Christmas Cactus on my desk at work, which until now has bloomed in February. This year, to my surprise, it actually started blooming in time for Christmas! The plant itself is kind of plain looking, but its once-a-year flowers are breathtaking and unique - they remind me of birds in flight. Here you can see the different stages in the blossoms - first come little buds, and then they get bigger, and then the petals kind of peel themselves back, revealing the stamen inside. It really is wonderful and exciting to witness, year after year, whether or not you happen to celebrate Christmas :)



Feel free to click on any of these, if you'd like a closer look! 
As an added bonus, there are some nice shadows happening here, in addition to the pretty flowers themselves. I'm going to post this to Shadow Shot Sunday 2, the new incarnation of my favorite meme. Join us, won't you?
And it's a perfect entry for Ruby Tuesday, too, hosted by Mary at Work of the Poet. Come check it out, to see more reddish photography from all over the world!
Merry Christmas to all of you who are celebrating today! Here's wishing all of us a wonderful Shadow Shot Sunday, and a wonderful year full of peace, happiness, and beautiful flowers!

10 comments:

Gemma Wiseman said...

O what a glorious flowering! Great idea to have such beauty on your work desk!

Just a note - You need to accept the author invitation emailed from SSS2 to create a post as a standby host!

Happiest Christmas to you!

LV said...

I have a Christmas cactus that bloomed just at the right time this year. It was pink. I would dearly love having one this color.

Chubskulit Rose said...

Those are lovely!

Shadow, have a joyful Christmas celebration.

Robin said...

How lovely, lucky you having it right there on your desk. So that's a Christmas cactus. Funny, i always thought it was a different one.

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Hey Harriet said...

I just love your Christmas cactus!

Hey that's such super cool news that you've volunteered to help run SSS! How awesome of you! I can't tell you how pleased I am that the little meme is continuing!

Wishing you a most wonderful Christmas Toby! xo

Kelly said...

What a beautiful plant!! I love that you have two blooms in varying degrees of opening so that we can see the process.

Cafe au lait said...

Great shots!

I played too. Mine are here and here.

Maria's Space said...

Ahhh lovely. I remember my parents had those and they were beautiful to see during the holiday. Such a beautiful color.

Leah H. said...

Have no idea that Cactus could have a beautiful flowers..So pretty!

Visiting for RT! Here's mine-hope you can visit too..

http://www.sweethomephilippines.com/2011/12/red-hot-piggy-bank.html

Jessica said...

very pretty flowers, loved it :-) visiting for Ruby Tuesday, hope that you can return the favor too.

http://www.mommies2ks.com/2011/12/thank-you-grandma-and-grandpa-for-this-crayola-3-in-1-double-easel.html