Echinopsis oxygona 'Rose Quartz'

Echinopsis 'Rose Quartz is a hobby Echinopsis hybrid grown above all for its large, satiny pink flowers. A plant of garden origin rather than a wild species, it is commonly attributed to a cross between the peanut cactus Echinopsis chamaecereus and a Lobivia (a lineage historically placed in the nothogenus ×Chamaelobivia), and is prized by collectors for blooms that open a soft, luminous rose with a faintly translucent, quartz-like sheen.

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Description

'Rose Quartz' forms a low, freely clustering plant of many short, upright, finger- to thumb-thick green stems, ribbed with woolly areoles bearing short, mostly soft spines. It branches profusely from the base, building a dense mound of stems over time.

The flowers are the whole point of the cultivar. Borne on long, slender, hairy tubes that emerge from the sides of the stems, they open into wide, funnel-shaped blooms in a clear satiny pink, often paler toward the throat and deeper at the petal tips. Each flower is comparatively short-lived — lasting only a day or two — but a well-grown, mature clump can throw several flushes across the warm months.

Cultivation

Care follows other free-flowering Echinopsis hybrids. In short, 'Rose Quartz' is an easy, forgiving cactus for a sunny windowsill or bright greenhouse. Grow it in a fast-draining, mostly mineral mix, give it strong light to keep growth compact and encourage budding, and water generously through the growing season once the soil has dried, tapering off to a cool, dry winter rest. That dry, cool dormancy is what sets flower buds for the following year.

Being a cultivar, 'Rose Quartz' is maintained vegetatively so that every plant flowers true to the selected pink. See Watering, Repotting and Pests and diseases for general technique.

Propagation

Because seed-raised plants would not reliably reproduce the flower colour, 'Rose Quartz' is propagated vegetatively from its offsets rather than from seed. Detach a well-developed pup, let the cut surface callus for a few days, then pot it into a gritty mix and root it as you would any offset. See also Propagation — cuttings.

See also

• Echinopsis — the genus overview
• Echinopsis chamaecereus · Lobivia — the reported parent lineage
• Propagation — offsets · Soil and potting mix · Watering · Repotting

References

Horticultural information for growing these plants as ornamentals. Always confirm plant identification and any handling, grafting, or safety advice against authoritative sources before acting.