Holiday Cactus
More Holiday Cactus Trivia by SmartHerbals:
Holiday Cacti are all members of the Schlumbergera genus, and come in Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas variations, depending on when they flower in the Northern Hemisphere
To tell them apart: Christmas cacti have rounded stem segments and trumpet-shaped flowers that arc downwards. Thanksgiving cacti have spiky stem segments and flowers with a bend to keep them horizontal. Easter cacti have much smoother stem segments and star-shaped flowers.
Like other cacti, they don’t use leaves to photosynthesise, instead using their stems.
In the wild, their flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds.
Holiday Cacti are originally from the Brazilian Atlantic (Rain) Forest
Sources:
Boyle, T.H., Karle, R. and Han, S.S., 1995. Pollen germination, pollen tube growth, fruit set, and seed development in Schlumbergera truncata and S.× buckleyi (Cactaceae). Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, 120(2), pp.313-317.
Brunelle, P.J., 2001. Recognition and Culture of the Holiday Cacti. http://cactus.biology.dal.ca/paulS/christmas/christmas.html (retrieved from the Wayback Machine)
Calvente, A., Zappi, D.C., Forest, F. and Lohmann, L.G., 2011. Molecular phylogeny of tribe Rhipsalideae (Cactaceae) and taxonomic implications for Schlumbergera and Hatiora. Molecular phylogenetics and Evolution, 58(3), pp.456-468.
Image: Pixabay - Bianca Berg (flower), Rafael Javier (hummingbird)
