If you visit this blog often you'll see a recurring theme in our personal posts. As newbies to the Sonoran Desert we're still learning about life in this rich and unique ecosystem, and each new- found discovery brings out the kid in me. The more I see, the more I want to know.
My last post was a tale of desert wildlife, as we literally played host to a mother bobcat and two kittens residing in our attic and romping on our roof. The experience was part wonder, part 'what the heck have we gotten ourselves into;' we helped mom fend off an aggressive young male bobcat (who came after the kittens at 3:30 a.m.), gathered branches from the desert to build 'ramps' to give mom and babies a safe exit, and handled the human element in the form of worried neighbors and concerned HOA folks, plus a parade of game and fish officers, police, and wildlife experts who gave us a crash course in bobcat behaviour. But this is an ending the Bard would have loved because all's well that end's well: mom and babies headed off into the wild via the ramps, my husband bobcat-proofed the attic (surprisingly clean, they're cats after all), and we spotted one of the babies in our arroyo last week, looking strong, confident and healthy. We high-fived each other like proud parents.
This post is about a more benign but just as wondrous desert encounter. This beautiful plant is a Cereus repandus, known as a Peruvian Apple for the apple-like fruit left behind after flowering. Like many cereus cacti, the Peruvian Apple grows well here in the Sonoran Desert but unlike some of its cousins, which blend into the desert with their resemblance to sticks, this one's both attractive and imposing; it stands over 6 feet tall and demands notice and respect thanks to inch-long thorns.
As with other cereus varieties, it's the flowers that make the Peruvian Apple magnificent. The Peruvian Apple produces big beautiful flowers, bright, white and showy, but they're the Vegas Showgirls of the Sonoran Desert...if you want to see them in all their glory you'd better like the nightlife because the Peruvian Apple is a night bloomer, you can only catch the show in the evening and early morning. They're lustrous and lovely in the glow of the moon but like the all-night partier they are, the flowers start to fade with the rising sun, and by mid morning they begin to transform from flower to apple.
This morning I could see that last night was a good one for flower-gazing, there were four giant new blooms on the larger of my two Peruvian Apples. So like any member of the paparazzi I rushed for my camera to capture the exotic beauty before it disappeared again. But the show's not over; I spotted at least a dozen unopened buds still waiting to make their grand entrance so I've scribble myself a reminder to stake it out tonight. That's one reason I'm so fond of this plant: unlike some cereus cacti that bloom once a year, the Peruvian Apple generously flowers for three months!
And when the showgirl flowers are gone we still get one last piece of entertainment; the big red apple-like fruit left by the flowers are full of sap and loved by birds. Finches, mockingbirds and cactus wrens stick their whole heads in and pop out with dripping beaks. They're happy birds and I'm a happy spectator, enjoying one more unique element of the beautiful place I call home.
