While some night-blooming cereus are grown indoors in homes or greenhouses in colder climates, most of these plants are too large or ungainly for this treatment, and are only found outdoors in tropical areas. The plants that bear such flowers can be tall, columnar, and sometimes extremely large and tree-like, but more frequently are thin-stemmed climbers. Also for healthy plants there can sometimes be as many as three separate blooming events spread out over the warmest months. Plants in the same geographical area tend to bloom on the same night. Most of the flowers open after nightfall, and by dawn, most are in the process of wilting. Regardless of genus or species, night-blooming cereus flowers are almost always white or very pale shades of other colors, often large, and frequently fragrant.

Selenicereus (usually Selenicereus grandiflorus).

Peniocereus ( Peniocereus greggii, the best known, is strictly a desert plant which grows from an underground tuber and is infrequently cultivated).

Nyctocereus (usually Nyctocereus serpentinus).

Hylocereus (of which Hylocereus undatus is the most frequently cultivated outdoors, and is the main source of the commercial fruit crop, dragonfruit).

Epiphyllum (usually Epiphyllum oxypetalum, gooseneck cactus grown as an indoor houseplant throughout the world, and the most popular cultivated night-blooming cereus).

Echinopsis (usually Echinopsis pachanoi, San Pedro cactus).Cacti which may be called by this name include: While many cacti referred to as night-blooming cereus belong to the tribe Cereeae, other night-blooming cacti in the subfamily Cactoideae may also be called night-blooming cereus. Other names for one or more cacti with this habit are princess of the night, Honolulu queen (for Hylocereus undatus), Christ in the manger, dama de noche, and queen of the night (which is also used for an unrelated plant species). The flowers are short lived, and some of these species, such as Selenicereus grandiflorus, bloom only once a year, for a single night, though most put out multiple flowers over a period of several weeks, each of which opens for only a single night.

Night-blooming cereus is the common name referring to a large number of flowering ceroid cacti that bloom at night. Night-blooming cereus in full bloom in late-August

Cereus blooms at night sparknotes