For years our gawky Night-Blooming Cereus plants have striven to make up for their klutzy ugliness (there's no other word) by giving birth to a bloom or two in August.   It's always worth the wait.  The flowers, which open for only a few hours, and only for one night, are gorgeous.  They're about the size of softballs, and are heavy, on long stems, so one usually has to look up into them to appreciate the complexity and beauty of the architecture within.

This summer, for reasons unknown, the succulent lobes of our three plants turned leathery and yellowish, making them even more repulsive to look at than ever.   But then, for the first time in the over 40 years we've had them, they budded up in a frolic of gestation.   On the night of August ninth, we arrived home a little before midnight, to see cascading from our ugly ducklings alongside the driveway, over a dozen rampant blossoms glistening in our headlights, fully opened and yearning - alas in  vain - for that one Venezuelan moth that would come to pollinate them.  I unlimbered my camera while Lois held a flashlight.