There really is a Thanksgiving cactus AND a Christmas cactus. Who knew ? I just always thought my Christmas cactus was an over-achiever and bloomed early. If your Christmas cactus bloomed at Thanksgiving, then it's probably not a Christmas cactus at all. It's a Thanksgiving cactus.Even though these two plants look similar, there are certain characteristics that help to tell them apart.
And if you keep reading, we'll eventually get around to that.
Christmas cacti and Thanksgiving cacti belong to the same botanical genus, Schlumbergera, meaning they’re closely related. It’s easy for even the well-trained eye to mistake them for the same plant. Both grow wild in the mountains of southeastern Brazil, so they prefer things on the cool and shady side, unlike the cacti found in desert habitats. This is partly why they are an easy to care for house plant, although they do need more regular watering than a desert cactus would.
The beautiful blooms grow on flattened, spineless, segmented green stems. They can be pink, red, white, or yellow. They don't have leaves. Although these cacti have similar-looking flowers and stems, each of these features offers clues to help you distinguish a Christmas and a Thanksgiving cactus from one another. Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumbergera truncata) was once commonly called the “crab claw cactus” or “crab cactus" before it started being marketed around Turkey Day. It also goes by zygocactus. You can identify it by the pointy “teeth” on the sides of each stem segment. These teeth are soft, not sharp, and can vary in size, but are almost always visible on the plant to some degree. The Christmas cactus stem segments lack pointed teeth and have more scalloped or rounded edges.
There is another way to tell the difference. Sticking out from each blossom, the cluster of long, thin anthers will be tipped with pollen. If the color of the pollen is yellow, you more than likely have a Thanksgiving cactus, and if it's pink, you probably have a Christmas cactus. While the Christmas cactus stems hang down like a pendant, the Thanksgiving cactus has stems that grow upright at first and then arch. When figuring out which one of these cacti you have growing in your house, consider the age of your plant for some hints. In recent years, all sorts of new varieties have been produced with characteristics that blur the differences between the two species. These are what you're more likely to find for sale nowadays, instead of the original species-type plants. So if your plant is a young one from a garden center or grocery store, chances are it's a major mishmash between Christmas and Thanksgiving cacti, and maybe a few other related species. Who knows what all is mixed in? This plant is what we might call a "Mutt cactus."
But if Grandma gave you a cutting off that 50-year-old plant growing on her kitchen window sill, you might actually have a straight-up Thanksgiving or Christmas cactus with nothing else mixed in. A pure-bred cactus for sure.
Confused yet ? Well, hang on because there is another look-alike cactus.
It's the Easter cactus. Yup. For those of you in to the Latin names, it's called Hatiora gaertneri (formerly classified as Rhipsalidopsis gaertneri), and it blooms in the spring. Its flaring, trumpet-shaped flowers have pointy pink or red petals.
If the “Y” shaped segment breaks off from one of your cactus branches, just stick it in a pot of sterile soil or vermiculite. It will root in no time.
My cacti were all tiny when purchased and came in a plastic pot. I immediately replant them in a glass or terra cotta pot so that when they become root bound, I can just break the pot and lift the root ball into a larger 'breakable' pot. There is no way to lift that plant out by the top without breaking it to pieces.