The Beauty of the Cactus Flower

Today I visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens with my plein air painting group. We came on a perfect day to see cactus blooms. Before I could sit down to paint, I wandered around looking at and photographing some of the beautiful flowers.

Even the cactus buds are beautiful!

The flowers in these last two photos and the first photo are about the size of an adult's hand.
They were breathtaking!