Our gorgeous orchid cactus (Epiphyllum) has thrown us a bloom, just in time for Valentines Day! Last year, this newly propagated treasure gave us one dinner plate-sized blossom. This year, she possesses eleven ruby red buds from which are opening the most gorgeously hued and fabulously fragrant flowers. Blue-violet tinged electric orange-magenta outer petals surround Schiaparelli shocking pink inner petals, shading to a lime green throat, and highlighted by creamy yellow anthers and starry stigma. The flowers stay open for several days, unlike her relative the Night-blooming Cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum, whose blossoms last only a single night before wilting by dawn), and one in bloom scents an entire room, or several rooms.

A garden club plant sale special, I know not the name of this brilliant beauty. Her description does not wholly match the orchid cactus cultivars found on the internet and not a one mentions her fabulous fragrance. I purchased this very young plant several years ago at the Community Center in Rockport, at what I believe was the Rockport Garden Club’s annual plant sale. If any of my Rockport readers recognize the plant from the photo and know the name of this cultivar, or who has the parent plant, please email me.

* Shocking pink was fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s (1890- 19730) signature color and she described it as “life-giving, like all the light and the birds and the fish in the world put together, a color of China and Peru but not of the West.”