On the Patio

[cactuswatcher]

The plants on the patio have suffered a little from all the heat this year, too. But this one didn't care much!

This one is about an inch across without the flowers. It's a native of the Atacama Desert in Chile. It's so dry there that the plants get most of their moisture from the breeze off the sea rather than rain. This one grew up in a nursery so it needs shade. But this is the second time it's bloomed this year. So I guess it's happy.

Copiapoa hypogaea

Comments

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

It sure looks happy. "Hypogaea?" Little earth? Lack of earth?

;o)

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Lack of soil, maybe? For all I know, it was named after the botanist's daughter, Hypoga Hermione Hickenlooper.

;o)

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

LOL!

I was going with "Gaea" (or Gaia) being the ancient Earth Goddess, and hypo as the opposite of hyper...but I think I like your idea better!

;o)

[ann1962]

It looks almost magnolia like, in the petals, the angles and lengths. Neat!

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

It does look like that with the pink tipped flowers, doesn't it? A teeny weeny magnolia. (I had a magnolia tree in St. Louis.)

[ann1962]

(I had a purple one in CT that I really loved. It wasn't huge, maybe 12 ft tall, but it would bloom at least twice if we had a long fall. They don't grow as well here. Like this one.)

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Mine had big white flowers with pink tips. It was a true southern magnolia, so it bloomed in the spring if the winter wasn't too cold. Maybe two years out of three.

[ann1962]

Those are my favourite magnolias. When we were in N. Carolina once, we walked down a street lined with them, they must have been 50 or 60 feet tall, all in bloom. Died and gone to heaven!