Saturday, May 10, 2008

Translucent Red

Gymnocalycium baldianum


After a recent garden tour in Jerome Arizona, I was inspired to stop by a botanical garden near there, and found this G. baldianum with a red flower. I've looked for one for several years, but since the flower color is seldom on the label, I've always passed them up. Since this one was definitely red, I brought it home.

I already have a very nice G. baldianum cactus with beautiful pink/coral flowers. I've been so pleased with the flowering length and frequency of this particular cactus that I wanted to add another with a different color flower. The G. baldianum species can have flowers that range from bright red through white.

There is a certain translucent quality to the flowers on G. baldianum that I don't see with other cactus flowers. They remind me of vellum or encaustic.

7 comments:

Claude said...

This is definitely a beauty. I was wondering, since these blooms can vary from white to pink to red, would I be likely to get several colors if I tried to grow them from seed, or do the color variations breed true?

beckie said...

Isn't wonderful to finally find a plant you have hunted long and hard for? This is really a true red and so pretty.

kate smudges said...

This is a huge flower. I love the colour - the petals look as if they are tinged with pink. The flower interior is intriguing as well.

Aiyana said...

Claude,
If you trust the seed source and the color is called out, then it will be true. Red is supposed to be the most common color in G. baldianum, but I've not found that to be true. Most of the ones available have been pink.

The Diva said...

I love that shade of red. So glad you got one.~~Dee

Aunt Debbi/kurts mom said...

congratulations on obtaining that beauty.

Deb

-AG- said...

Well, sorry about the image on my blog it was just fine until yesterday apparently. I deleted it and reloaded it and hopefully it works now. I was so pleased to receive your comments! I need to post some new material, but right now I'm burnt out from finals. I like the heather, and it is not susceptible to the whiteflies quite so much as the lantana. I liked the purple lantana in my yard but it always burned in the sumer froze in winter and suffered white flies in between so... now I only have the yellow. I really like that red cactus bloom... one of my fav. shades of red.

-Andrew-