Cactus Flowers
These are small flowers for this cactus.
Oroya peruviana
The buds are bright pink, as you can see behind the bloom, and last for months before finally opening. This is the first one I’ve managed to capture on film, so to speak.
They are generally solitary and usually flattened, except as they age eventually they start to grow vertical. Not too vertical, mind you, but they might even get up to 10″ tall! As compared to 8″ across, and you can see how they might be mistaken for a column cactus.
I’m going to guess from the name that it’s from Peru. In fact, I refuse to look it up to check. It might not be from Peru, and someone may have mistakenly misnamed it, but whatevah. My confidence in it’s origin outweighs my curiosity in looking it up (also known as my laziness).
We have been growing them outside for a few years, even though originally we assumed it wasn’t hardy around here, but they’ve been thriving so I think we can announce with great confidence that these are hardy here. To 28F or maybe even below!
