common name : Christmas cactus/Thanksgiving cactus/Holiday cactus/Crab cactus
Sci. name: Schlumbergera
Facts about Christmas Cactus
- Cacti are believed to have evolved in the last 30 to 40 million years ago.
- Like many tropical cacti, Christmas Cactus is also an epiphyte.
- The flowers are available in a wide variety of colors including red, purple, orange, pink, fuschia, cream, etc.
- The Christmas cactus is a member of a group sold as holiday cacti that also include the Thanksgiving cactus and the Easter cactus.
- The green, flattened, leaf-like structures that make up the majority of a Christmas Cactus are actually modified stem segments called cladodes. In most cacti, the leaves have been modified into spines which have many different functions for the plant. In the Christmas Cactus, the leaves and the spines are absent.
- Various plant species require cues from the environment to regulate the timing of certain events, like flowering. This mechanism called photoperiodismoccurs when plants initiate flowering or other activities in response to relative lengths of daylight and darkness.
