My weblog ELECTRON BLUE, which concentrated on science and mathematics, ran from 2004-2008. It is no longer being updated. My current blog, which is more art-related, is here.
Sun, 07 Aug, 2005
Bucky Blooms Again
It's been fairly torrid these last couple of weeks, with some passages of high humidity. But tonight, though heat lightning from distant storms flickered at the southern horizon, hardly a drop of rain fell here. It's good weather for cacti and succulents. My plants are out on the terrace, where they get plenty of sun and not much water other than what I provide for them. And this week, just about a year after it first started blooming, "Bucky," my geodesic dome cactus, has bloomed again.
I noticed the buds about a day before the bloom began. When it comes time to bloom, this cactus moves incredibly fast. The buds shoot from the central fuzzy crown at the top in only a day or so. By evening, the buds began to open. As the night progressed, the buds the buds opened fully. I knew from its previous blooming that these flowers would only be open for one night, and by morning they were done. There will be another flower in a few weeks.
The bright whiteness of the flowers is common among night-blooming plants, since it catches any light no matter how dim and thus can attract pollinating moths and other night-flyers. But I wonder what the evolutionary strategy is, when a plant only opens its blooms for two nights a year. You would think it is too easy to miss. I still don't know what species this cactus is. Perhaps in the wild (if this plant still exists in the wild) it blooms more frequently.
There has been minor disruption and mess in my studio while I take care of maintenance and shuffling jobs around. I am still reviewing the physics I have learned, with the Schaum's book. Currently I'm re-doing vectors, and will finally learn about projectile motion at an angle. The cycle of learning, forgetting, review, re-learning, re-forgetting, and review seems endless, and dampens my enthusiasm, even if no rain falls.
Posted at 2:39 am | link