The return of a white Gumnocalycium

I did not have many blooms from my cacti this year. Overtime, I lost some that bloomed every year. Some suffer a bit. Others have maybe one flower here and there. I do enjoy every single one of them, but it's nothing spectacular this year.

But this one I will show!





This Gymnocalycium is one of the newest acquisitions. I bought it last fall (with two others that also decided to bloom this year), repotted it, and left it on a windowsill to adapt. I didn't want to leave it outside straight away. I am still not sure if keeping him inside instead of the open balcony over winter did this, or if it was still the nursery treatment, but the amount of flowers is just amazing!





Besides the 4 blooms and 2 still smaller buds, there are a few more still very tiny that will (I hope) open much later.

A few years ago I had Gumno with white flowers like this. But one year it got too much rain, and it rotted like a champ!
I thought this one would be pink, but I am glad I got the white one back.

The underside of the petals have this warm, dark beige stripes. The top is almost pure white, but as the flowers get older, they get pinkier.

I took those photos over a week ago and after that I tried to pollinate the open flowers. Today I picked up the two flowers that opened first all dried up. No fruit. The pollination didn't work. I guess I need two different ones to cross them. Pity.

But a good thing is that the flowers last over a week, which is quite unusual for a cactus. Most last just a couple of days, some just one night.

And boy did it grow! It almost doesn't fit the pot that had a lot of room just a few months ago. I bought it in one of those small, round 5 cm pots. I moved it to the larger, black ones, and I could still squeeze a finger between the plant and the edge of the pot. It is almost touching it now!





Like a little rose :)