Epiphyllum oxypetalum - Queen of the night!

Many people grow the old fashioned, red flowered Orchid Cactus (Epiphyllum x ackermanii)



including myself, but I wanted to grow its more exotic cousin, E. oxypetalum.

I have grown this plant for a few years years now. It took me quite a while to source a plant and even eBay let me down, although I have seen them crop up since.

The plant has two different growth types. in mid winter, it forms canes which grow skyward at a rapid rate. Mine often reach the ceiling and I have to trim them back, then, in spring and summer the canes start to produce the typical flat leaves common



The flowers are pure white and nocturnal. They open in the early evening and sadly, are dead by morning. They posses an incredible fragrance and even a single flower can lightly perfume a room. Unfortunately, my plant has only produced three flowers but I have seen photos of plants smothered with them.







During the last flowering, I made a rough time lapse photo of the flower opening.

 

Very Nice CoolSox

I've got a number of species plants now all only cuttings although I do have a large plant of Epiphyllum crenatum I've also got a number of species Disocactus & Selenicereus

 

I seem to remember growing this a few years ago.
I remember it making very long flat branches which started to take over my conservatory.
Unfortunately, space being a problem I had to remove it, it did have a few flowers, but not enough to warrant the space it was taking up.