Identification: Help identify this night bloomer with heady fragrance

My husband bought this plant a few years ago - much to our surprise it developed enormous blooms thats bloom for only a few hours at night with the most extraordinary heavy, sweet fragrance - it's in our bedroom and we have literally been awakened by the fragrance to know the bloom has opened. This picture is a blooming flower plus one that has just finished blooming - its leaves are the large ones on the top (another plant below it) - in Toronto in blooms in late June/early July but who knows the significance of that.

Any ideas? Thanks!

(Sorry - should have rotated pic before I uploaded it - the blooming flower is "up")

 

I see that the moderator has moved this to indoor plants but I wonder if it is actually an outdoor plant in its natural environment?

 

Maybe this is it?

Night-blooming Cereus, Queen of the Night, Dutchman's Pipe Cactus
Epiphyllum oxypetalum

 

I have the same plant. You should feel lucky (or talented) that yours blooms freely. Mine has gone many years without a bloom.

The person who gave it to me said it was a night-blooming cereus. I believe that several species of plants in the cactus family go by that name. I don't know which species you and I have.

Perhaps another poster can give more specific information.

 

All indoor plants are outdoor plants in their natural environment (or at least their parent species are if they are hybrid progeny)

 

Ken R

We must have posted at the same time - yes it definitely is a night blooming cereus - here's the web site where I found several pictures

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2443/

I can take no credit for its blooms - my husband has green fingers and thumbs - each June/July we get several blooms - last year we had 8!

The plant is in our bedroom and earlier this evening I could smell the fact a bloom had blossomed from the other end of the house - the fragrance is amazing.

Daniel - yes I see your point! Just didn't know if anyone would look here for an outdoor plant.......

Thanks - great website.

 

In the last 3 months my cereus(2) have given me over fifty blooms. I'm in the tampa bay area of Florida, and although they have just finished blooming, I noticed today that both have new blooms starting again. They are outdoors all year, of course, and the biggest problem they have is getting sunburned until my 50 foot wide Royal Poincianna comes back into leaf. Each cereus is prox 5 feet high and 8 feet wide. Both are growing in wire baskets in soilless potting mix. (fafard 52 mix)

 

It's the common Epiphyllum oxypetalum, as already posted. Many people ask about this on the internet. Gooseneck cactus is good because it describes the tube of the flower well. Night blooming cereus is not so good because it begs confusion with plants in the genus Cereus.

 

There are several of these in the house I live in and they have bloomed at least once a year. Except this year when I started to feel sorry for them and watered them a few times. They grew more but didn't bloom. I see that they now have some buds on them and I stopped caring for them a long time ago. It seems that they like to be stressed by being dry to induce blooming.
I say let em dry out till they bloom, then reward them with a little water till they bloom again.
I can hear them begging now, "Feed me Seymore."

Keith

 

Itis a night blooming cereus. I have several, very easy to replant. I only have one tho that flowers. I can't every catch it. It is always there in the morning. Mine doesn't seem to have a fragrance tho. But very beautiful.

 

I agree with Ron B. Calling it "night-blooming cereus" bespeaks confusion with a different group of cacti. Even taken in the broadest, old-fashioned sense, "cereus" means one of the columnar cacti.

 

Oh my gosh. If mine would bloom like that I would be estatic. I feel lucky to one bloom and I have at least 10 plants. When they stay in all winter, they turn brown and get crispy. I just finished pruning all the dead stuff off, so I may or may not get a bloom. Mine seem to like it outside.

 

gagee: Perhaps a little more water than they care for when inside.

 

Do you have any idea how many night blooming cactus have been called "night blooming cereus"? Many different species in several different genera. Not all Cereus are columnar, some are sprawling and weedy.

Its Epiphyllum oxypetalum.

All "house plants" are outdoor plants in their native environment. Not a single one normally grows indoors in a house.

 

I have something similar that has no blossoms yet but the leaves and their colour are the same as yours.I was told it is a " Cactus of the Forest" often sold as Epiphyllum and it is an epiphytic plant that grows on forests trees.
Danielle from Ottawa

 

The names above are all correct but one of your questions went at least partially unanswered. You asked if this was naturally an outdoor plant and that was not completely answered. As with all indoor plants the answer is certainly yes. But in this case Epiphyllum species are all found in southern Mexico, Central America, and throughout tropical South America. That entire region is a rain forest.

There was somewhat of a debate on another thread as to whether or not this is a rain forest species. I received a number of answers from qualified botanists who are rain forest experts and all said it is truly a rain forest species. The only dissenter with credentials was Dr. Leo Martin who is the director of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America although in one of his personal emails he told me he was aware of one species that was found in the wet forest regions. Only the cactii enthusiasts appear to prefer not to call Epiphyllum species rain forest plants. It appears the debate revolves around "what is a rain forest".

Even though there are 80 plus listed species on many sites the true number of species is now listed at 16. All the other names have been reduced to synonym names of the current list of species. They are only found in the rain forest regions of the tropical environment.

This response was provided by Dr. Croat Ph.D., P.A. Schulze Curator of Botany of the Missouri Botanical Garden who likely knows more about the tropical rain forests of Central and South America than anyone in the United States, "The term rain forest is not a standard or formal designation. In the Holdridge Life Zone System which I use the term rain forest is used a variety of designations. A standard range of wetness would range from Tropical dry forest to Premontane dry forest to Tropical moist forest, Premontane wet forest, Tropical wet forest, Tropical rain forest, Premontane rain forest, Lower montane rainforest, Montane rain forest. The effective degree of wetness is the critical feature and may be owing to a lot of rain or a cooler temperature and thus a reduced amount of transevaporation so that a single life zone could range form sea level to 2000 m depending on the amount of precipitation. Pluvial lowland forest is the wettest, hottest and is rather restricted, known only from northwest S. America in Colombia where it may rain 36 feet a year." Followed by a private note which read, "I doubt if Epiphyllum occurs in the wettest of forests, for example in Tropical Pluvial forest, but they do occur in many types of tropical forests." Dr.Croat has likely spent more time in tropical rain forest than any botanist in North America. He is responsible for finding, naming and describing to science an enormous number of plant species and spends close to two months each year in a rain forest jungle exploring.

These species are normally found high in the canopy, often in dead trees, up where they can capture high light that is slightly diffused. Most live in regions where it does not rain year round. But those regions still receive enough rain fall to be qualified as legimitate rain forests. Their neighboring species are often bromeliads that live directly adjacent to these Epiphyllum species. That fact was confirmed by one of the curators of the Marie Selby Botanical Garden in Tampa, FL who is one of the world's leading Bromeliad experts.

Rain forests are divided into dry forest, moist forest, and wet forest with a number of regions in between. The rain simply does not suddenly jump from slight to super wet. Especially in countries such as Brazil there are regions of the Amazon basin where these species are common that are totally flooded in the wet season but out of water during the dry season. But these species undoubtedly like rain!

I have a rain forest atrium which is watered by an automatic misting system. The system soaks the entire room for 10 minutes every morning 6 days a week. On hot days I press the button in the afternoon and give the entire room an addition soaking. Since we have done that our very large Epiphyllum phyllanthus has begun producing up to 5 or 6 blooms each evening with only a few days in between when no blooms are produced. It has been blooming for many years but never at the current rate of bloom production.

If you are interested in reading the scientific information on these species that was provided by a fair number of botanical experts you can read it here:

http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Epiphyllum phyllanthus subsp. phyllanthus pc.html

Slthough quite different from the blooms on your Epiphyllum species, this is one of the blooms that fully opened on our plant last evening.