Cactus Flower, Part III

Last week, I took an afternoon off to watch the last-of-a-lifetime transit of Venus. While I was getting ready for that event I noticed that three buds in my cactus patch were about to open.

You might remember an earlier video where two blossoms were ready to open on the same cactus but they opened on consecutive nights. I was kind of hoping they'd have opened together. But I got to record one opening while another was closing. Another of my videos shows one flower opening and closing in one take.

I was lucky to be home in time to record three flowers opening together. I set the camera up and recorded the action from about 3:15 (the transit had started but I couldn't yet see it with my eclipse filter) till 10:20. I put my desk lamp on an upside down trash can next to the tripod and had it on all the time. That way, when the sun went down the desk lamp lit the scene and the camera adjusted itself to keep things pretty uniformly exposed. Ain't technology grand? The blossom looking head-on into the camera does get overexposed, but I still think technology is grand.

These flowers have always lasted less than a day. Usually, when I come home from work the day after a flower opened it is has already drooped. This time they were still in their full glory the next evening. I decided that they must be ready to wilt so I set the camera up again to record their demise. They were still open when I went to bed. I left the camera clicking through the second night and through the next day until just after the third sunset.

You might remember that one of my earlier videos watched a blossom on a cactus that was lying on the ground.

It seems that these cactuses spread not only by seeds but by breaking when they get top-heavy and taking root where the pieces land. New plants sprout all along the length of the fallen piece.

The end of this video illustrates that method of propagation.

For the first evening, I took pictures every two seconds and they're played back at a rate of 15 frames per second. The second segment was shot a picture every second and play back at 30 frames per second. The video shows an hour every two seconds.

As usual, it's best in HD and full screen!