Freaky Flowers: Echinopsis Cacti in Bloom

Flowers of the many varieties of the Echinopsis cactus bloom in a hurry, overnight, and only last for a day. Greg Krehel has quite a collection, and well worth sharing in this time-lapse video.

The cacti shown in this video come from my collection. The evening when it looks like a plant's flowers are about to bloom, I bring it indoors to image. Most of the clips in this montage show approximately 8 hours of change as the flowers open and bloom. A little more than halfway through the montage, there's a series of three clips showing different views of a 24-hour period in the life of a yellow-flowered 'Daydream' plant. Six flowers that opened the night before I started filming wilt to nothingness and another 4 flowers grow dramatically and then open. This series of 'Daydream' clips is followed by another three showing other types of flowers wilting. These additional wilting clips are also taken over a daylong period.

The only filtering he did was to actually reduce the saturation of color in a the blooms, or they would be overwhelming on film. (via Nag on the Lake)