Cactus Chamaecereus Silvestrii

Chamaecereus Silvestrii has been one of the longest-serving cacti in my life. In my home I have always seen a very large test that when spring comes, it is filled with small orange red flowers that hold open all day, and when the sun is lowered, they start closing until next day. And these flowers I’ve seen open for up to a week. It has the common name cactus peanut, because of its shape and size, which resembles this dry fruit, and is native to Argentina, more specifically the north.

It is considered a dwarf cactus and it does not grow in height, but it does in width. It forms a compact plant that can be up to fifty centimeters wide and the larger stems can be fifteen centimeters and grow horizontally. They have a diameter of between one and a half and two and a half centimeters. They are light green in color and the length of each stem is protruding on its spines.

It likes a place where it has a half shade, because if it touches the direct sun for too long and especially if it is at the center hours of the day where the sun is hotter, there is a danger that they will change from green to red and this will make them dry too much. If, however, you have it in a place where it has too much shade and receives too little sunlight, this will cause each of the stems that form the cactus to lengthen to look for light and as a result lose strength in both color and flowering impoverishment and also lose ability to point.

This particular kind of cactus is one of the toughest things I know and have at home. He has no problem with holding temperatures below zero, some cases have been recorded where he has held up to twenty degrees negative. Unlike many of the other species, Chamaecereus silvestrii needs winter cold to flourish. Does not like the humidity, so it is good to irrigate them during the growing season (spring until autumn) once a week and every twenty days or once a month (if it is possible that you have it in an area where there is practically no cold or it is non-existent to prevent cactus drying).

A personal note: We’ve always liked flowers in my home, there’s always been flowers, and when I was a little girl, I was looking at the test where this cactus was, and I was wondering what kind of plant I was, because I was told I couldn’t get close because I could punch it, so I looked at it closely without touching it, I looked at every detail like the spikes that had, the color that it was and especially when it was time to bloom, I was surprised that something that I considered odd, curious and at the same time beautiful, I could make some flowers of that size and also come out so many at the same time. It was not until a few years later that I was aware that this was not just any plant, that was a cactus. It was then that I understood because I was always told and insisted that I should not get close to it and that I should not, above all, touch it, because it could hurt me very badly!