Epiphyllum oxypetalum, a spectacular blooming cactus
The queen of the night is a worthy addition to every gardener's collection
Epiphyllum oxypetalum is a cactus with no thorns, grows in the shade, and needs regular watering. And flowers once a year, with the blooms lasting only a few hours at night. It is thus an unusual member of the Cactaceae family but one that any novice gardener can consider adding to their collection due to the ease of growing it, as I describe below.
The plant has many common names including, Dutchman's Pipe, Lady of the night, Jungle Cactus, Night-blooming Cereus, Orchid Cactus, and Queen of the Night.
Since I have been growing cacti, starting with the eighties of the twentieth century, I have associated India's annual monsoons with the blooming of the Epiphyllum oxypetalum. Earlier this week, a member of the Urbania gardening group shared photos of her Epiphyllum oxypetalum flowering over a couple of nights.
I have seen and hear of the monsoon blooms of Epiphyllum oxypetalum with older specimens bearing several flowers, all of which bloom one rainy evening to become limp the next morning! When in bloom, the flowers are bewitchingly fragrant and make great pictures at night with their milky white in contrast to the night's darkness.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum buds start as tiny objects, rapidly gain size, and project from the plant with their curving stems. They bloom around 9 p.m. and stay open for a few hours till about 3 p.m., and many gardeners miss witnessing their plant flowering as they did not realize the blooms would last a few hours in the night.
Epiphytic cacti like Epiphyllum oxypetalum are native to southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South American countries like Brazil. It has now escaped cultivation and grows wild in many countries. The Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CABI) has classified it as a weed that needs to be tracked and controlled to prevent its invasion of native plant habitats.
In its native countries, Epiphyllum oxypetalum grows on treetops taking the support of host trees and using aerial roots to get nutrients from organic matter sources like bird droppings, fallen leaves, and dead insects.
The Epiphyllum genus has nineteen species of epiphytic plants, one of which is the Epiphyllum oxypetalum.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum is an epiphytic cactus that you can find growing on rocks or trees in dry thickets, seasonal forests, evergreen forests, moist forests, and coastal areas. In cultivation, gardeners commonly grow this species on walls, fences, and yard trees.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum is a natural climber, and its new growth is cylindrical but reorients to become flat stem which gardeners are familiar with and associate the species.
The plant is a fast grower that needs very little space and tolerates becoming overgrown due to the small container which houses it.
As Epiphyllum oxypetalum has no leaves, if you observe it closely, you will find soft spines, which are the plant's leaves which the species has modified to thorns. The stem is flat, green, leaf-like, and photosynthesizes in places of leaves and stores water, helping the plant overcome the lack of moisture.
You grow it in a regular cactus mix which drains fast. You can make such a medium by using a porous component such as grit or perlite. Some growers use bark mix and even sand in their potting mix for Epiphyllum oxypetalum.
The plant needs support as it can grow tall, and the stem starts bending. Due to its growth nature, it is good for hanging pots as the branches are drooping and hang out of such pots. Its stem yellowing is a sign of excessive sun exposure.
In native habitat, the plant creeps on trees and uses aerial roots to latch on to the support. You may not find aerial roots at homes, and space limits make the plant grow to six to ten feet in height. There are records of some Epiphyllum oxypetalum plants having reached twenty feet height.
It seems there is no limit to the plant's growth, and it can keep reaching heights in favorable conditions.
As Epiphyllum oxypetalum is a jungle cactus, you can keep it in the shade or areas of your garden with indirect light.
You can grow them in full sunlight also outdoors. You can use trellises to support Epiphyllum oxypetalum and use poles or rods to support it.
The white fragrant flowers of Epiphyllum oxypetalum bloom only at night and form fruits though that may not happen with all specimens.
The Flowers have a nine-inch diameter and resemble a waterlily, leading to the common Indian name, Brahma Kamal or Brahma's lotus.
Flowers have tepals or organs, which are neither sepals nor petals but a combination of those two floral organs. The outer tepals are reddish, and the inner ones are white. Keeping the plant to face morning sunlight several hours a day is a way to make it flower easily. A trick to make Epiphyllum flower is to keep it pot-bound, which forces it to bloom.
Banana skins also help in their flowering as they are rich in potassium with no nitrogen.
The fruit looks like small dragon fruit, and the inner part resembles it with black seeds on white flesh.
You can propagate Epiphyllum oxypetalum by stem cuttings, which help you shape an overgrown plant and multiply it.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum starts producing new stems from the point below, which you took a cutting. You will see stolons or green cylindrical growth, which is the way the plant expands in nature. The stolons flatten out as they grow and can develop aerial roots. You can repot this plant once every three years into a new pot about 2 inches larger than the older one.
Some pests you will find on this plant include mealybugs, spider mites, whitefly, and scale insects. The diseases which affect Epiphyllum oxypetalum are root or leaf rot, leaf-spot disease, and powdery mildew. In addition, black rot from fungi and bacteria causes brown blotches on stems.
The plant sometimes also shows leaf spot disease through yellowing and browning from high moisture, which you can avoid by spraying the stem and leaving it wet for long. Morning misting will help quickly evaporate the water on the stem. You can prevent root rot by not over-watering.
Epiphyllum oxypetalum takes a long time to flower and does so after three to six years from when a gardener started growing them. Hence, Epiphyllum oxypetalum is among the most expensive flowers because its blooms occur rarely and remain open for a few hours after it opens.