Epiphyllum "campfire."

I'm now going to start a section about a couple of my wife's plants. She had a small collection of cacti and succulents when we started dating, and I believe all of them are still alive despite her best efforts.

The Epiphyllum, or Epi as she calls it, is a member of the cactus family. Epiphyllum is Greek for upon-leaf. The name is likely due to the propensity for this genus to grow off of other trees. Epiphylla are known for their fragrant, colorful flowers. These cacti are sometimes referred to as orchid cacti or leaf cacti (their stems are broad and flat). To produce different flower colors, many hybrids of hybrids of hybrids have been propagated. For this reason the species name is not identifiable.

The Epiphyllum cultivar we have is called campfire and should hopefully one day have bright red flowers. Typically these guys get really long and leggy and will hang down from their epiphytic abodes. I talked my wife into cutting off one of the longer stems and replanting in the pot. She warned me that something unpleasant would befall me if it died, but luckily it seems to have rooted and now it even has its own new side shoot. Now all we need is a flower. Apparently the fruit is edible and very similar to the pitaya (dragon fruit of the genus Hylocereus), which I may write about later when I start talking about plants that I want to grow.