Stapelia leendertziae

 This one I'm told is a true leendertziae.  There are a lot of crosses of this one, but this is the classic bell shaped one that is so different from the open flowers of most of the stapelias.

The flower pod on these are the deep dark red, almost purple unlike most of their relatives which develop a green pod. 

Stapelia leendertziae - Bud

 

Above - just starting to open, below about 5 hours later.

And this is it fully open.

Smell - um STRONG.  These guys you do not plant near your eating area (well I don't suggest that with any of these - but especially not these ones).  The thing about the smell is that as the temperatures climb the smell gets stronger, and it travels further.   This cutting I received off a fellow collector in Floreat - and his was in a hanging basket with about 15 flowers open.  The smell could have knocked you backwards.  Looked absolutely gorgeous.  Good thing it has big flowers (about 5cm across) as that way you can admire from a safe distance!

And a view down the throat of the plant to show the corona.  Flies were busy yesterday and I could see them coming and going from inside while I was taking photos of the divaricata openting yesterday.

Stapelia divaricata - waiting not so patiently...

Don't you hate it when you go out in the morning and you can see the flower is opening...

 So you keep checking on it (well about an hour or two later)

 and finally a single petal opens

and you start thinking it wont be long now till the next one, so you wait a bit longer

and you wait, and you wait a bit more

and then suddenly in a split second two more petals come apart

and this last bit is a LONG wait, in fact so long that DD12 has time to run inside to get her camera, take quite a bit of video and photos and then get bored (and wants to tickle the flower open - which mean mummy wont let her do - although I do offer to tickle her instead)

DD grows so bored she gives up and goes inside.

And you keep waiting.

and waiting

and waiting.....

until suddenly it pops.

 

Was it worth the wait ? 

Umm maybe.  It is a beautiful flower, and reallistically it all happened in under 30 mins (from the first petal popping).  But I think next I might see if I can run a time lapse video :D

Final update - it's about 5 hours later - the flower curls backwards now.  Still pretty just different.

 

Huernia aspera perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Sorry brief foray into some half remembered song....

This is a new one for me - but its gorgeous (OK they are all gorgeous).  This one is pretty mild on the scent rating - which is great, as it does appear to have quite a few blooms at the moment.

Desperately needs repotting, but I only got it yesterday.  Still to confirm the name, as the label was lost somewhere along its 150km trip to me. (hence what got me started on the perhaps... perhaps... perhaps)  Darn it - can't believe I've got that song as an earworm today!  Anyway wanted to show this off while it was still blooming.  Will correct the name if I need to when I get confirmation.

Love  it!

Only problem so far is that its a rather fragile one - doesn't take much to knock a piece off.  Then again my friends will enjoy pieces, so again not all bad.

Confirmed as Huernia Aspera.

Huernia schneideriana - I think not! Orbea Variegata Dark Form

This was a plant I picked up from Bunnings last year - originally from Collectors Corner in Victoria  I've been waiting for months to see the the first flower.  It's always that moment of excitement when you see them for the first time.  So I watched and eventually 2 little buds formed.  I kept an eye on it, day by day, week after week (or so it seemed) until it eventually decided to unfurl.

Now imagine my disappointment as the flower looked NOTHING like the picture.

Sigh.  These things do happen.  What I do have is a very nice Orbea variegata dark form.  Which I didn't actually own.  So well kind of happy on that side of things.... but also kind of annoyed it wasn't the plant or flower I expected.

 

 

The next day a more "normal" (normal here being the kind I seem to find around Perth) variegata opened.  So here they are side by side so you can see the colour difference.

 

Could have been worse :)

Oh smell rating - to me this one has a definite umm aroma.  I have friends that claim their variegata's don't have any scent.  Either I have a very sensitive nose or I'm just unlucky in my choice of plants.  As these always seem to smell quite strongly to me.

Stapelia gigantea

This one is not uncommon around Perth.  See it every so often on gumtree, and you can usually pick it up by talking to someone in a gardening group.  But its still spectacular.

This one measures about 15cm from the corona to the end of a petal, so about 30cm in diameter.  Singularly the flowers don't smell too bad.  But as I tend to have all my carrion flowers in one spot, well lets just say the smells are starting to get stronger.

I have seen this growing in the ground here - usually morning sun in a really really well drained garden bed.  Not to close to entertaining areas.  Does grow fairly rampant from what I can see when it gets the right growing situation.  But it doesn't really seem to like the Perth summer and would rather nestle into a semishaded position than venture into really hot spots. 

Nice reddish hairs on this one - but not a huge number of them.  Probably one of my least hairy stapelia's :D

Stapelia Gigantea in flower

Stapelia Gigantea corona