Flowering Normanbokea valdeziana (Turbinicarpus valdezianus)

My coldhouse grown Normanbokea valdeziana plants (SB 1468; Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico) have flowered before but I’ve never had the chance to actually experience the bloom until a few weeks ago.


Flowering Normanbokea valdeziana

The petals are a pinkish white with a darker magenta midstripe, giving me strange associations to candy canes ;-) The filament and stigma are pure white while the anthers are a bright yellow. The flower is huge compared to the body of the plant, completely hiding it when seen from above.


Normanbokea valdeziana flower hiding plant

Normanbokea valdeziana is slow growing and its tiny feathery spines almost completely obscure the body of the plant – it is said to sometimes form clusters but all of my plants are solitary.


Normanbokea valdeziana flower

This species is capable of surviving hard, extended frost – all of my plants even made it through last winter’s extremely cold conditions without any damage.

Sukkulentarium Muthandi recently featured five flowering Normanbokea valdeziana plants, all displaying fairly different flowers.