Christmas Cactus named Thor Ritt

This piece has been featured in the FAA Group, Best of Botanical Beauty.
Schlumbergera Thor Ritt is a Holiday Cactus. This type of plant flowers... more

by J McCombie

Title

Christmas Cactus named Thor Ritt

Artist

J McCombie

Medium

Photograph - Untouched

Description

This piece has been featured in the FAA Group, "Best of Botanical Beauty".
Schlumbergera Thor Ritt is a Holiday Cactus. This type of plant flowers after certain triggers are meet; as cool nights, short days and less moisture. One way this is easily done is by putting the plant in an unused room in the fall. They are very easy to grow and very pretty, This plant has striking bright pink flowers.
Thor Ritt is cyclamen purple with a lighter-colored centre and lower petals. Pistil is violet red with white filaments and cream-colored pollen. The pink buds are quite blunt and rounded. The phylloclades are large with two to three dentations on each side up to the apex. Its hybridizer is Thoruplund from Denmark.
This is one of a few Shlumbergeras that have adapted successfully to growing indoors in containers. It is very similar to the Christmas Cactus, Schlumbergera bridgesii. Claw Cactus has a greater flower range than the Christmas Cactus and its stem segment is longer and more deeply incised. This gives it its name, Claw Cactus. With a little detective work you could probably locate specimens in rose, pink, magenta, purple, golden yellow, orange, scarlet, red and even white.
Schlumbergera is a small genus of cacti with six species found in the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil. Plants grow on trees or rocks in habitats that are generally shady with high humidity, and can be quite different in appearance from their desert-dwelling cousins. Most species of Schlumbergera have stems which resemble leaf-like pads joined one to the other and flowers which appear from areoles at the joints and tips of the stems. Two species have cylindrical stems more similar to other cacti. In Brazil, the genus is referred to as Flor de Maio (May flower), reflecting the period in which they flower in the Southern Hemisphere.
This genus contains the popular house plants known by a variety of names including Christmas cactus, Thanksgiving cactus, crab cactus and holiday cactus, which are Schlumbergera cultivars, and flower in white, pink, yellow, orange, red or purple. (The Easter cactus or Whitsun cactus, which may also be called a holiday cactus and has vivid scarlet flowers in the most commonly grown form, is now placed in the genus Hatiora.) The cultivars of Schlumbergera fall into two main groups:
The Truncata Group contains all cultivars with features derived mainly from the species S. truncata: stem segments with pointed teeth; flowers held more or less horizontally, usually above the horizontal, whose upper side is differently shaped from the lower side (zygomorphic); and pollen which is yellow. They generally flower earlier than members of the Buckleyi Group and although common names are not applied consistently may be distinguished as Thanksgiving cactus, crab cactus or claw cactus.
The Buckleyi Group contains all cultivars with at least some features clearly showing inheritance from S. russelliana: stem segments with rounded, more symmetrical teeth; more or less symmetrical (regular) flowers which hang down, below the horizontal; and pollen which is pink. They generally flower later than members of the Truncata Group and are more likely to be called Christmas cactus.

Uploaded

December 20th, 2022