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The commonest of the Christmas Cacti, though it has been entirely replaced in the trade by more modern hybrids. This one gets passed along from one person to another.
I inherited three large plants, quite by accident, and have managed to give one of them away again! Now they are large they have to spend the winter under the bench in the greenhouse -
there isn't anywhere else that can accomodate them. They are quite brittle, so bits fall off, get stuck in pots, and suddenly there is another one. The North Carolina Extension Gardener Toolbox says: "Christmas cactus is an artificial hybrid of S. russelliana x S. truncata that produces brightly colored flowers during the holiday season. It is an epiphytic cactus and very popular as a houseplant. It measures 6 to 12 inches tall and 12 to 24 inches wide and has a pendulous habit. The hybrid epithet honors William Buckley, who created this hybrid at the Rollisson Nurseries in England in 1840s." McMillan and Horobin write in their book: "Almost exactly a century before Epiphyllum truncatum and E. russelianum were finlly reunited in a single genus, hybrids between the two species were announced by the 'conductor' of a short-lived periodical, The Garden Companion and Florists Guide, Thomas Moore, Curator of the Chelsea Botanic Garden. They had been raised at the nursery of Messrs Rollison of Tooting (a south London suburb), by Wilbraham Buckley, who reported that 'They were obtained by impregnating E. Russellianum with a variety of truncatum called Ruckerianum'. The three hybrids were formally described and named by Moore, having previously been sold under other names. The significance of the report (Moore 1852) was overlooked until 1964, when brought to light by Will Tjaden (Tjaden 1964). Of the three names proposed by Moore, Tjaden selected the one commemorating Buckley himself as the 'collective' epithet for all hybrids of S. russelliana and S. truncata parentage; hence the name S. x buckleyi." |
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| 24th February 2008 | ||
