Desert Flower
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Cactuses thrive in extreme desert heat where temperatures can climb over 120 degrees. One such prickly plant is the Night Blooming Cereus or Queen of the Night. For most of the year, it resembles nothing more than a dead bush. But as night falls on one night every June, the cactus's white flower opens, and closes forever a few hours late when the sun comes up. Correspondent Jeff Rice files this report from Tuscon, Arizona.

When the days get hot enough to gather the first traces of monsoon clouds, the "queen of the night" summons all of its energy and opens, sending its perfume out into the desert.

I can't describe the smell itself…but the smell to me is one of the most important parts of it. And it's really, it's…for me, it's a very healing kind of experience.

Each flower blooms for only one night, the color of a white silk dress in something like a cactus Cinderella story. To celebrate, people have parties and stay up late into the evening.

Well I was expecting more of a lily of the valley, but I got more of a perfumy, more towards a really light rose scent with a vanilla splash…

We watch the giant Sphynx moths as they unroll their long tongues and seek out the flower's nectar. The same thing that draws the moths, draws us, and we push our noses closer.

It's indescribable, I don't know. It's .. it's more rusty. Like the desert smell of summer after a rain.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Thanks today go to Engineer Sean Doucette and Producer Margaret Landsman.