Out On Display

Day 35: They...those...them things... (hold that thought...we'll come back to it in a moment) have been brought out from the weaving room where temperatures tend to be a little cooler in spring and autumn than in the rest of the house, conditions ideal for setting their annual blooms and remaining true to varietal colour. If given too much light or warm nights, the yellow and white types tend to blush pink, and the crimson and scarlet ones lean more closely to one another in hue. I refer to my collection as "the Dragons," with abundant manes and long tongues so like those ornamenting the head of the mythological Chinese beast one sees in parades. Whether they are "Christmas" cacti or "Thanksgiving" cacti is partially a function of photoperodism, i.e., the duration of daylight. Nursery plants are usually forced to bloom in time windows relative to either holiday and are released in batches accordingly.

And now we come to it: are they Zygocacti or Schlumbergeras? Here I must admit to a certain stubborn retrogressive attitude because they were one of the first plants whose scientific name I learned. I must have been all of seven or eight years old at the time, and thought that "Zygocactus" was a wonderful word even though it failed to impress any of my peers (a situation quite common to my childhood). I had not yet discovered the fluidity of taxonomy or I might have been on the alert for the change which came some time in the mid-50s when "Zygocactus" became obsolete and the genus was re-merged with the Schlumbergeras, from which it had been separated in the late 1800s. I went merrily through most of my adult life calling them "Zygocacti," and even now, slip back into the old habit although I know better. "Zygocactus" is still used by many growers as a common name (NB: "common") for these low-maintenance holiday favourites.