Christmas Cacti (Schlumbergera)

The epiphytic plant study group has many members interested in Schlumbergera (Christmas cacti) and one of the groups objectives is to identify and retain in cultivation as many of the old varieties as possible.  Many of these originated in the middle of the nineteenth century and while some are still to be found, they rarely have names.  Thus we are reliant on old descriptions, drawings and paintings from the time. Illustrated here is the old variety of the Crab cactus, Schlumbergera truncata, called 'Spectabile'.  This was described and illustrated in 1848 in Portfeuille des Horticulteurs

There were many other varieties, particularly from English and European breeders.  More will be illustrated here shortly, including many of the old varieties from Victorian times.

We now have an article by A.J.S. McMillan on the fascinating "Queens", hybrids between the newly discovered S. orssichiana and S. truncata.  Check here to view this.

Christmas cacti make extremely good and long-lived houseplants which have a tremendous advantage of flowering during the winter period when few flowers are found on most plants.

Above is a photograph  of 'Sonja' (top) and  'Sanne' (bottom) in full flower.  These plants are actually quite young, around 10 years in the case of 'Sonja'.  'Sanne' was actually obtained from 'Sonja' by mutation breeding techniques and apart from the flower colour is very close in all characteristics.

07 December 2000