Suddenly Seymour

Special thanks to Grammy Cracker
because without the GrammyCam,
which she so generously sent me,
I would not have a camera at all.

SEYMOUR GETS HIS BLOOM ON
7/6/10

NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS

This is my Night Blooming Cereus, Seymour. He was a cutting from my friend Rob's plant, and Rob's was a cutting from Stella & George's plant. It took Seymour 2 years to make that one bloom, which lasts for only one night and then dies the next day.

The bloom was bigger than a softball and the smell was very strong, super sweet, like forty million honeysuckle.... almost unbearably strong. The smell filled the whole house.... and that was only one bloom, I can only imagine what multiple blooms must smell like.


The thing inside of it there looks to me like a spider - I thought that it must be some sort of lure to get some creature in there after the "spider" to pollinate it, but I have read that they are pollinated by Sphinx Moths who are attracted to the scent, not the lure... but I still think that spider looking lure is there for some reason that they just don't understand yet. Has to be.

SPHINX MOTH
It has stealth technology!

This guy photographed his bloom opening up in time lapse, and added Robin Trower as a soundtrack! Excellent!

This is what Seymour's flower looks like this morning

Then GOD said,
I give you every seed-bearing plant
on the face of the whole earth
and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.
~ Genesis 1

I read if the bloom gets pollinated the flower turns into a red apple like fruit. Since I have no sphinx moths here I suppose it will just dry up and die within the next day or so. Thanks again to Saint Rob for the cutting and to Grammy Cracker for the means by which to document the bloom.

This morning.
You can see the bloom dying now,
in the lower left hand corner there...

Suddenly Seymour
is standin' beside me
He don't give me orders
He don't condescend
Suddenly Seymour
is here to provide me
Sweet understanding
Seymour's my friend