New and Improved!

A week ago I had posted a short time-lapse of my Mammillaria longimamma blooming.  It is an unusual looking cactus with striking flowers, and as I learned, its blossoms last longer than usual cacti and their day-long flowers. After posting the day-long sequence, I started another the next day, then again on the third! The second day the second bud opened, as shown at left. On day three I was looking for something a little more unusual to add, so stopped as they were opening to zoom in on the center of the first flower. Watching the time-lapse later, the vibrations of the flower petals and the interior flower parts seem to be natural and not caused by insects or wind. Since the images were taken every 3 minutes (20/hour), buffeting from outside sources would be herky-jerky, so the gentle swaying seems natural.  Note that all this activity takes place in an 8cm square plastic pot!

Finally, on day 4 I kept an eye on it, but the now-aged buds refused to open, and a snapshot appears at the end of the sequence below. Good thing too, as it was Mercury transit day, and both cameras were busy, and didn't have another to spare!

So without further ado, here is the now-78 second clip.  Feel free to go full screen and hi-def if you have the bandwidth.  Enjoy!