Almost every grocery store or big box home store we walk into right now has a rack of what most people call Christmas cactus. But is it really a Christmas cactus or is it a Thanksgiving cactus?

There are both types of cactuses, and they look almost identical.

There are differences, however. As the name implies, the main difference is when the cactus blooms. A Thanksgiving cactus blooms in November and a Christmas cactus blooms in December.

If you are wanting to know which you just bought, take a look at the individual pads of the plant. These pads are not technically leaves. They are called cladodes, and are flattened segments of the stem.

We just have to look at the edges of these flattened segments to identify the cactus.

A Thanksgiving cactus has tiny, well-formed, jagged points at

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