I’ve told you about my melocactus before, but more is happening with them all of a sudden, and I am having fun watching them bloom and develop their cephalium. These cacti, native to Brazil and the Caribbean, are distinctive because of the cephalium that grows from the crown of the plant. They tend to add this cephalium after they are ten or so years old, and after it begins to develop, the body of the cactus stays about the same size and all its energy for growth goes into that cephalium, which just gets taller and taller. I have four of them, and you can see the one that already has its cephalium. And have I said that word enough times? Ha.
The one with the cephalium is a Melocactus salvadorensis. On September 13, my other M. salvadorensis, the last one on the right, showed signs of its cephalium forming.
And sure enough, it did!
The cephalium started to develop before September 13. By September 28 a bud appeared.
And then later in the day, that bud opened.
And then by October 17, the new cephalium had made two new flowers. It has continued to make a few more flowers, too.
This is so much fun to see the progress of these cacti! it’s really quite interesting how these cacti have evolved over time. In the meantime, the older one is growing and adding more height and blooming as I watch it make more flowers and fruit. 
Then, in the last two weeks, the Melocactus concinnus has started to form its cephalium! Yes, I know they are all beginning to look alike, but they really aren’t all the same.
The last one on the shelf to the left is a Melocactus asureus, and bless its heart, it doesn’t look like the others! it has lost its top spines and doesn’t look happy in the center of the plant. I am not sure it will ever recover from whatever happened to the spines, and I don’t know what caused them to disappear.
I rather doubt it will ever grow a cephalium. But I won’t give up on it. Time will tell, and it will always have a place in my collection.
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