![]() Indeed, some only last 24 hours! Strawflowers, though, are forever … well, almost: they can persist for two years or more. Of course, you could always delay the purchase for a week or so: real cactus flowers are ephemeral, rarely remaining in good condition for more than 10 days. If you gently lift the “petals” (actually, ray flowers), you’ll be able to see the glob of whitish glue underneath the flower. Fake flowers, on the other hand, were attached to the plant using hot glue. On some smaller-flowering cacti, such as pincushion cacti ( Mammillaria spp.), the stem is very short, but you can still see it has one if you look closely. Real cactus flowers are borne on a tubular stem (receptacle) that can be short or long depending on the species and is often spiny. Or look at what connects the flower to the plant. Sources: Mario Morais, Wikimedia Commons and Fake cactus flowers (right) are simply glued on. Real cactus flowers (left) are borne on the tip of a stem (in fact, a receptacle). Strawflowers have a papery texture and are likely to crack if you try to bend them too much. Real cactus flowers are soft as silk and don’t resist when you push on them. There are a few cacti with lime-green flowers, but never bright green.Īnd don’t be afraid to touch the flower. If you see purple, violet or blue flowers in a group of what appears to be flowering cacti, they’re fake. Cactus with fake flowers usually arrive in trays and are so displayed in nurseries. If the flower is perfectly centered, it’s therefore not a real one. Their flowers always grow from more mature parts of the plant, sometimes squarely from the side of the plant, sometimes closer to the center, but never smack dab in the middle. Often, the grower sticks the flower directly on the growing point, that is, right the center of the stem. Source: įirst, look where the flower is placed. Thus, the flower opens wide when the air is dry and closes when the air is humid, giving the impression that the flower is alive.Ĭacti simply don’t grow with a flower dead center on the tip of the stem, proving all these flowers are fake. It’s in the nature of strawflowers, even dead strawflowers, to react to atmospheric humidity. But they’re not cactus flowers and that’s the rub.Ĭuriously, the fake flowers actually open and close. They’re used because they last for several years and are very easy to dye in a wide range of colors. Bracteantha bracteatum and Helichrysum bracteatum), a garden annual. They are the dried inflorescences of strawflowers ( Xerochrysum bracteatum, syn. The fake flowers are actually real, at least in a sense. ![]() And it works! I spoke (actually, I complained to) a local garden center owner and he said he keeps offering cacti with fake flowers them because they sell much better than healthy cacti. Cactus growers stick fake flowers on their plants simply to boost sales. This has been going on for at least 40 years, as I can remember seeing them when I was a kid. Source: Įvery year, many houseplant enthusiasts, especially beginners, are taken in by a long-standing horticultural rip-off: cacti bearing fake flowers. All of these are real cacti … with but there isn’t a real cactus flower among them.
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