Trichocereus flowers at last Some thirty years ago one Brighton branch member had to give up his collection as he was moving to a flat. We acquired a number of his plants amongst them a two foot Trichocereus. It had a thick stem about 4 inches in diameter and very stout long sharp spines. It was never going to be a prize winner being a masochist in that the spines recurved strongly and scratched the plant stem as it grew leaving a series of small scars behind. While we were in Brighton it was kept in a large pot and had grown to about 4 foot by the time we moved to Ansty when it was given free root run in our central bed. It grew much faster producing a number of branches, but still no flowers. Eventually at about 8 foot a portion of the top stem broke off under its own weight and was planted in a pot to root. The bottom by now was very ugly and almost submerged in the rioting vegetation of our central bed. One winter after some heavy pruning it decided it had enough and rotted off. Meanwhile the potted branch was growing steadily and had reached an unbranched 8-9 foot. This year to our pleasure it decided to flower. It only had one flower but it was enormous at about 12 inches in diameter. The flower with the stem characteristics has enabled us to identify the species with reasonable certainty as Trichocereus tacquirensis.

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