PlantFiles: Easter Lily Cactus
Echinopsis oxygona

Have posted a time-lapse video of E. oxygona in bloom. Search "Desert Dance zzwerzy" at YouTube. Thanks to Dave's Garden for help identifying it!

In confirmation of earlier comment: Yes, the blooms have a fine, faint, sweet aroma with complex undertones.

More synonyms of this plant are:
Echinopsis turbinata
Cereus turbinatus
Echinopsis pudantii
Echinopsis eyriesii var. pudantii
Echinopsis schwantesii
Echinopsis paraguayensis
Cereus eyriesii
Cereus tubiflorus
Echinocactus tubiflorus
Echinocactus eyriesii
Cereus multiplex
Cereus oxygonus
Cereus adolfofriedrichii

The only thing I have to add is that the flowers, though short lived, are very subtly fragrant. I wonder if others have had this same experience.

I've had one of these for about 10 years, it's now a 20" diameter cluster with about 20 heads. It handled several winters in Davis, CA, including some light snow, so it is at least good for all of zone 9.

Water tends to pool in their growth point, so they should be watered at the base and kept out of winter rains or they may rot. This happened to mine and I figured the mother plant would stop growing and just kick out babies, but the growth point actually re-generated in the calous and kept going.

This species is much nicer than the regular easter lilly cactus, Echinopsis oxygona, IMO.

Much hardier than this site suggests. It can come through a cold, wet UK winter without any protection, and survive frequent frosts (down to -3.9C last winter, and 10 or more nights below -2C).

I live in central Alabama, and have grown these for around fifteen years. They've stayed on the east side of my house, on the edge of our carport. Receiving full sun in the morning and partial sun for the rest of the day, these cacti have thrived. Reading that they're hardy from about zone 10 southward, I laugh... these stayed outside all winter. Heck, they've never been brought indoors.

I've done nothing special - no fertilizing, no regular watering... heck, I mostly forgot about them until a friend wanted some and I ended up dividing one of the larger specimens. A few babies fell off during the process, so I just stuck them in some old pots with even older dirt.

That was back in March... it's now August here, and I've got my first blooms in fifteen years... only on one, but it's still a thrill to me. I never thought anything about them blooming until now. Picture is uploaded.

Amazing beautiful flowers. They attract humming birds initially but I've never seen a humming bird come back for a second glance. In Redding, they bloom at night and last only about 24hours but in San Clemente, they last for about 3 days. They also bloom in SC from Easter time through late summer. If you let the blooms fall off on their own, you'll have more babies. If you don't take the babies off after they're a few years old, eventually, they suffocate the "Mother" plant. Some of my babies are about the size of romaine tomatoes and they still get full size blooms....Amazing!