ID this cactus by blossom?

18 years ago

Hey all,

Last week this beauty burst out 2 gorgeous blooms. About 6 inches across, they only last a day and then shrivel and fall to the ground. The plant is a columnar form cactus up to about 5' tall perhaps 3" in diameter. It has many smallish spines all set in neat rows along the length, sort of like a mini-saguaro but spines are more golden orangish in tone. You can see a bit of it at the bottom of the flower in the photo. The blooms were just spectacular and now there are weird little roundish spiny tufts in their place on the column, I suppose the fruit although hard to know what could actually eat it! I forgot to check it for fragrance though - bad bad bad... I know it's not as fragrant as my other columnar flowering beauty thatis so strong it needs no checking and envelopes my yard when it blooms. I'll have to post that one day too, not sure what it is either.

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Comments (5)

judy_b
18 years ago
Maybe a Golden Torch?
kactuskathi
18 years ago
Yes it is a Golden Torch!
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Pagancat
18 years ago
" A rose, by any other name... "

Gorgeous, Kathi!
kactuskathi
18 years ago
PC wasn't my post but thank you anyway. I do have several golden torch cactus and the pbloom is gorgeous. I haven't forgotten you visit, but I think we should wait until fall don't you???
Kathleen W
Original Author
18 years ago
Yippee! Thanks Judy and Kathi for the ID :) This is one of those cactus that we have acquired cuttings of over the years, some DH pulled from someone's trash pile many many years ago, others friends gave a slip when we moved here. This golden torch along with our totem pole, one that looks a bit like fence post and the real mexican fence post variety all have just grown and grown in our yard. This torch is part of a near "hedge" that grows over a dozen columns all along the garage wall, some up to the eaves, others reaching a foot or two above that. We put a lot of 1/4"- granite in all around our house at the beginning and a few times over the years and I think these guys really appreciate that along with the extra water we give.

The other non-identified column cactus I have is that one similar to fence post but has symmetrical dots of spines spaced about an inch apart all down the lines instead of solid lines of spines like on the real fence post. Both that one and the golden torch put out some very weird looking "fruit" and/or precursors to the actual blossoms. The non-ID'd one is right now putting out a lot of little hairy nubs, looking sort of like little old man cacti that got stuck on the top portions of the columns. This one also makes a great big beautiful blooms similar to the golden torch and that smell like HEAVEN! Can't wait....

Kathi, do you know if Golden Torch is fragrant? I missed these and still wonder...