Your Schlumbergera is Showing

Y’all — I need to discuss a very important topic: The ever-popular Christmas cactus is not what you think it is.

Who do we blame? GRANDMA? Does it even matter at this point? The answer is no, it doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you are informed, and will properly identify this plant for the rest of your life.

Schlumbergera is a genus of between six and nine South American coastal mountain cactus, found mostly in Brazil, and the members of this genus are epiphytes! We love these plants, and you’d be hard pressed to find a southern household without one, especially around the holidays. They’ve soared in popularity in recent years, and the surge in popularity has come with loads of misidentification — It’s a marketing thing, presumably.

You’ll note the slight differences in both the flowers and the leaf margins. Thanksgiving cactus have sharper, more pointy leaf margins, while the Christmas cactus is more rounded. The flowers of the Thanksgiving cactus are asymmetrical, and gracefully arch down from their stems with a varied orientation. Christmas cactus have symmetrical petals, a tubular structure, and bloom in vertical orientations.

Your schlumbergera should be starting to show off soon, and I want to know what cultivar you have! Head to instagram when the bloom bonanza begins, tag @GraceArwin, identify your cactus, and you’ll be put on Grace’s list for a holiday surprise <3