Author:

Ilene Sternberg

Date:

Dec 20, 2001

Copyright The Washington Post Company Dec 20, 2001

Not long ago, I had a "religious experience." (Gardeners have lots of these.) I was invited to a friend's porch and told to arrive at precisely 9 p.m. There, for the first time, I witnessed the pageant of a night-blooming cereus.

Moonlit before the eyes of captivated onlookers, a single voluptuous flower staged a slow ballet, unfolding its waxy white petals to reveal a center of dazzling complexity. And as if the exotic dance weren't enough, it was attended by a hypnotic scent. We offered no applause, merely reverent appreciation and hushed conversation under the stars.

We were following a mystical ritual that had enchanted many before us. Victorians rhapsodized over the blossom's incomparable splendor and made much of the social occasion it inspired. The flowering, which occurs just once a year and sometimes not even that reliably, provided an evening's entertainment hosted by the plant's proud owner.

In the 1930s, American writer Eudora Welty and a few of her chums amused themselves by forming a night-blooming cereus club, visiting locals who advertised that their flowers would open that night. The cereus appears much later in two Welty works, "The Wanderers" and "Losing Battles."

Informal gatherings to witness the annual affair were commonplace in small-town America before World War II. Local newspapers announced imminent bloom, gauged by the swelling of the buds, and neighbors and strangers alike arrived for the show.

"We'd sit, mesmerized," recalled Welty's friend, poet Hubert Creekmore, "as the bud trembled and shuddered while it unwound its long slender white petals and spread them before our incredulous eyes as a delicately incised saucer full of froth."

fter the war, Creekmore recounted, "the city was too large for us to ring strangers' doorbells and for the papers to report the events. But we still could have the amazing experience on the patio of a friend who served us drinks and barbecued dinners."

American garden writer Louise Beebe Wilder remembered as a child being allowed to stay up for the spectacle. "The huge flower began to unfold at about eight o'clock and at eleven was fully blown, its rich perfume seeming to fill the world. The calyx of the flower when fully expanded is nearly a foot across. The petals gleam snowy white and lustrous. The vast number of stamens at the heart adds to the splendid appearance. Perhaps no other flower equals it in sheer magnificence." But its hour of triumph is short, as Wilder noted. "Before the cock crows, the drama is played out and the beautiful blossoms fallen into decay." Swan Lake revisited.

Great 18th-century botanical illustrators produced famous representations of these beauties. A 20th-century British botanical artist, Margaret Mee, journeyed 15 times to Amazon forests to chronicle the native flora, searching for years to catch the climbing moon cactus, Selenicereus wittii, in bloom. She succeeded only shortly before she died.

There are numerous plants called night-blooming cereus or its other lofty title, "Queen of the Night" ("La Reina de la Noche" in Latin American homes, where fiestas used to accompany the blossoming.) Most are native to tropical America. Like other nocturnal flowers, they are pollinated by moths and bats.

Nearly all cereus are genuinely cactuslike, spiny and forbidding, some nastier than others. Two commonly cultivated types are Selenicereus grandiflorus, the source of a homeopathic heart medicine, and Hylocereus undatus, a thorny thug cited on Florida's invasive species list. It yields a succulent red fruit from which a delicious wine can be made (how apt it would be to sip it while watching those petals unfurl).

The most familiar night-blooming cereus in the Northeast is the orchid cactus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum), a rangy but comparatively tame plant with long flat leaves that are scalloped, flailing aerial roots and round thornless stems. Some think its gangly habits make cereus so ugly when not in flower that it's hardly worth growing for one blissful night of glory. The cynics.

You are hard-pressed to find night-blooming cereus at garden centers. People usually get theirs as hand-me-downs. Stem cuttings root quickly in sand or water, but might take years to flower. They would make lovely Christmas gifts that might just rekindle the tradition of cereus get-togethers. Party time would depend on the particular species grown and whether plants are kept in the parlor, greenhouse or outdoors.

You can buy Epiphyllum oxypetalum at Logee's Greenhouses Ltd. (888- 330-8038; www.logees.com), Glasshouse Works (800-837-2142; www.glasshouseworks.com), Secret Garden Rare Plants (850-482-6034; www.secretgardenrareplants.com) and at Cactus King (760-753-6939; www.cactusking.com), which has Hylocereus undatus.

Night-blooming cereus like porous soil and bright indirect light, blooming best when pot-bound. They prefer temperatures above 60 degrees, but can withstand 40 to 45 degrees if kept nearly dry through winter. Feed and water them well before the plant's flowering, decreasing afterward until active growth resumes. Cut back straggly plants.

When the desert native Peniocereus greggii blossoms in Tucson's Tohono Chul Park from late May to mid-August, luminarias light the trails, moths busily pollinate and the Tohono O'odham Indian legend about the origin of these mysterious plants is recited (520-742- 6455; www.tohonochulpark.org).

At Punahou School, a Honolulu prep school, a 165-year-old hedge of Hylocereus undatus a half-mile long blooms with 5,000 blossoms, sporadically but peaking in late June, early July, from dawn to dusk. Imagine the fragrance. Time your vacation accordingly (808-944-5711; www.punahou.edu).

Ilene Sternberg is a freelance writer in West Chester, Pa.