The Queen of the Night
The Queen Of The Night, Origin Of Its Name
The botanical name Epiphyllum comes from the Greek epi: upon + phullon: leaf, oxypetalum: with acute petals. It describes the flower's many long, narrow petals.
The queen of the night is native to Southern Mexico and South America and is one of the exotic plants that crossed the Atlantic Ocean during the Age of Discoveries.
The Queen Of The Night Is A Very Intriguing Flower
A type of cactus sometimes confused with the night-blooming cereus, Epiphyllum oxypetalum, is an epiphyte, meaning it grows by attaching itself to other plants. It is also a succulent that thrives in temperate zones, and despite its popularity, it can take several years for it to start producing blooms.
As the vernacular suggests, the queen of the night blooms at night, and the flowers wilt before dawn. On a random year, the queen of the night may produce multiple buds, opening a single night in a decadent display where some flowers may reach 9” in diameter.
However, most of the time, a plant over 7 years of age may produce one or two buds that bloom together, bloom one per night, or not bloom at all, remaining dormant for years without flowering. The random choices made by the plant remain a mystery.
Why I Love It
Its alien-like, cocoon-shaped flowers emit a mesmerizing perfume that diffuses like very few do, attracting a nocturnal moth that may detect it up to 50 miles away. Loved as an ornamental plant and relatively easy to grow, it is nevertheless challenging to cultivate in large quantities, and sometimes the flowers fail to produce a scent. It is classed as a mute flower, and as with lily of the valley or freesia, once cut, many components in the scent stop being dispersed, making its perfume challenging to reproduce.
My maternal grandmother grew a specimen that still covers an entire fence dividing a portion of the galería in her house; it was her favorite flower, and she sensed whether the plant would bloom or not as if it spoke to her. She would wake us up to smell the perfume and see them. In the morning, the vestiges of the perfume on the wilted flowers would remind me of the scent I had smelled the night before, carried off by the breeze into Grandma’s bedroom through the giant wooden shutters that were open.
Given the opportunity, smells can indeed become part of our dreams.
Oxypetalum is imprinted in my memory, and on a mid-afternoon shopping trip on the Rue de Castiglione in Paris many years ago, I stumbled upon an Eau de Parfum that instantly brought it to mind. Since then, I hoped to re-create it someday as I remember it.
The Intriguing Perfume Of The Queen Of The Night
The perfume of the queen of the night at its peak is very floral-sweet, almost fruity, and reminiscent of Datura. However, it is also musky, spicy, green-minty, and lemony at the same time. Bewildering and hard to define, it is extraordinarily unique and very fragrant. It is a scent that captures the essence of summer nights in the Wet Pampas.
I created a Luxury Scented Candle and a Luxury Crystal Diffuser in Large and Slim sizes. Despite the complexity of the fragrance composition, it translates into a white floral aromatic profile, part orchid and part Rangoon creeper or pink jasmine, with the ubiquitous accent of waxy petals that all cactus flowers have thanks to the presence of linoleates. It is an unusual fragrance in the world of luxury home fragrance, and to date, the only luxury candle I know that remains loyal to the fragrance of the queen of the night.
Oxypétala, our rendition of the queen of the night at RHR Luxury, is a strong, heady floral scent with a decidedly mysterious side.
RHR