Strange and Beautiful Thanksgiving Cactus

Several years ago, my daughter, Patricia, gave me a Thanksgiving cactus.  I have repotted it once and moved it from location to location in the house, trying to find an ideal spot for it to grow and flower.  Well I finally found a good spot in the middle of the living room.   It gets good indirect light and has started to flourish.  About mid-November it started setting buds and has produced several nice flowers.  It is shown here next to another cactus I received from my friend Kathy for my birthday a few years back.  My photography is fuzzy for some reason but the flowers are continuing to bloom and set buds even today.

I did some internet research and found the following information on the care of the plant.  “The Thanksgiving cactus really is a cactus but it is far from the other typical plants of the family. Its stems are not round and spiny, but flat and smooth. Moreover, many people mistake them for leaves. The stems are divided into segments called "articles". First they grow up, and then arch up gracefully. The flowers, elongated and slightly asymmetrical, grow directly from the end of articles. Each flower may last two weeks, longer if the room is a bit cooler. There are three factors that stimulate flowering Thanksgiving cactus: short days, some drought and a slightly cool weather. So do not place your plant in a location that stays bright at night (your plant will suffer short-day) and reduce watering from September. If you lower the thermostat at night, you will make your Thanksgiving cactus very happy and it should bloom abundantly. But even if you do nothing special at all, it is not uncommon for it to flourish anyway.

Other than for short days and reduced watering and temperature in autumn, the Thanksgiving cactus is the perfect companion for indoor gardeners, because it requires no special treatment. Treat it like any houseplant, and it succeeds well. The Christmas cactus tolerates very dry air in our homes, but is not bothered if you increase the humidity. It does not particularly like transplantation. It may well grow in the same pot for 10 years or more without penalty.

It is propagated mainly by cuttings of the stems. Simply take a healthy stem comprising two to four items and insert it into a small pot of slightly moist compost. Rooting is fairly quickly." Source:http://voices.yahoo.com/how-care-thanksgiving-cactus-4514169.html