Photos & More
The Queen of the Night cactus blooms only one night each year, enveloping the desert with its exotic, inviting perfume.
On that magical night, this innocuous cactus, native to the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, unfolds its buds to reveal dramatic, white, fragrant flowers. Queen of the Night is known in the botanical world as peniocereus greggii, a species of night-blooming cacti and one of the desert’s most famous yet least encountered cacti. It is virtually invisible most of the year, with its thin, inconspicuous branches that are most frequently hidden amongst other cacti or shrubbery. However, during the summer, a trumpet-shaped blossom appears for only one night and its warm, soft floral scent delicately perfumes the desert night from as far as a quarter-mile away!
Here are various photographs of the Queen of the Night — a stick-like cactus 364 days a year until the one night it blooms its’ very elusive and fragrant flowers.
Watch our “Bloom Night”
video from Tohono Chul Park in Tucson!
Once in a Bloom Fragrances attended and filmed highlights from a past “Bloom Night” at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, AZ, home of over 340 “Queens”. “Mother Nature” picks the date as they say, but if you join their mailing list, they will email you with 24 hours notice of the Queen of the Nights’ anticipated bloom. This very special night attracts over a thousand people to the park from dusk to midnight and features special tours, refreshments, drawings and a live telling of the Tohono O’odham Indian tribe legend.