![flower that blooms in darkness flower that blooms in darkness](https://live.staticflickr.com/7007/6602163521_eb38107c51_b.jpg)
The flowers, sometimes called Arizona’s Queen of the Night, tend to pop open between late May and late July. In general, the blooming process happens so quickly that, as a 1934 piece in the New York Times puts it, “Those who watch the unfolding of the petals often hope to detect an evidence of motion, but the development is so smoothly uniform that the little bud suddenly appears more widely open than the second before, without a perceptible movement.” After giving off their famously hypnotic scent, the flowers wilt just a few hours later. Tohono Chul says that about 1,500 people came to the garden on Friday night, where they got to see the Cereus greggii go from a small bud to a palm-sized flower right before their eyes. Plant-lovers often gather to celebrate its unfurling, and such gatherings are not a new idea. As the Washington Post writes, “Informal gatherings to witness the annual affair were commonplace in small-town America before World War II.” Local newspapers announced when the cereus buds were swelling and the bloom imminent, and “neighbors and strangers alike arrived for the show.”
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The night-blooming cereus is known for its ethereal, star-like blossoms, as well its tendency to bloom all at once. And so, last Friday, the garden sent out an email with the subject line: “Bloom Night is Tonight!” Staff at the Tohono Chul garden, a non-profit botanical garden and nature preserve in Tucson, Arizona, often can’t tell when their record-setting collection of Cereus greggiiflowers will unfurl their long, fragrant petals until a few hours before they do. The flowers are a bit of a scientific mystery: They usually bloom on just one night a year, and en masse. On Friday, June 12, the world’s largest private collection of night-blooming cereus plants burst open. These night-blooming flowers spring forth from cacti just one night a year, in concert with other nearby cereus.