Star Flower Cactus

by Robert Bales

Title

Star Flower Cactus

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

A very interesting cactus!!!

Star Cactus Flowers smell like carrion and attract flies. When the blossom closes up in a day or 2, the fly eggs stay warm and eventually hatch into maggots. Depending on conditions and the horticulturist that owns the plant, the flies may hatch as well as the flower may be pollinated and form seed. Interest symbiosis. One must keep this plant outside during the blooming!�
Tufted creeping or procumbent cactus-like plant that trail and hang down over the pot with large and showy star-fish shaped flowers. It can form large clusters up to 50 cm in diameter (or more). Stapelia grandiflora is a very variable species with many hybrids both in the wild and in cultivation. This specie meets and intergrade withStapelia hirsuta in the little Karoo and the two (quite similar) species can be separated by its thicker pedicel up to 4-5 mm long.
Blooms are produced from the base on younger shoots, they are large, flat, star fish-shaped, orange, dark-red, deep brown-purple to chocolate, with transverse brow to whitish corrugation and densely covered by long purplish hairs at the centre that remember the fur of a dead animal. Undersides red to greenish. Corolla width very variable, from 5-15 cm (usually10/12 cm) across and very deeply lobed. The moderate carrion smell of the flowersattracts flies which may lay eggs on the flower. Sometimes fly larvae that have hatched from the eggs can be seen on the flower. Flowers are smaller than those of Stapelia gigantea. Buds plump peaked that resemble the domes of a Russian Orthodox church.

Easiest with stem cuttings. Allow cuttings to dry a day beforeplanting. Stems must be laid (Not buried) on gritty compost and will thenroot from the underside of the stems. It can also be increased from seedssowing in spring in moist, sandy peat moss. Barely cover seeds. Seedsgerminate

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November 26th, 2015

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