Published 4:24 pm Thursday, July 11, 2024 By Gene Fox I was working outside this past weekend, cleaning up the yard and had been helping my son with a project on his car. It sure was hot. When I went into the house to get more water and cool off a minute, I found that my daughter and wife were having a Christmas in July movie party.
They were on their second movie when I came in. While it was hot this past weekend, I did not seem to feel any relief from the Christmas in July. Speaking of Christmas, I had a sample come into the office this past Monday, from a Christmas cactus.
A little note about Christmas cacti, they are not all the same species. This particular sample came from one that also has the common name Thanksgiving and/or Easter cactus (Schlumbergera truncata). The common names are synonymous because there are over 200 hybrid cultivars of S.
truncata and S. russelliana. They are widely bred for their beautiful showy flowers in shades of red, pink, purple, orange, yellow, and white.
The main way to tell is by looking at the cladodes. These are the leaf-like flattened stems of the plant. They do not actually have leaves.
The cladodes of the S. truncata will have two to four spikes on them while the S. russelliana will be more rounded with no spikes.
Another way to tell the difference is when they are in flower, true S. russelliana plants have purple to brown anthers and the S. truncata has yellow anthers.
Of course, there is some bleedover in hybrids so you may have a.