German Empress aka Deutsche Kaiserin

German Empress aka Deutsche Kaiserin and possibly other names, is said to be hard to grow.  Perhaps I just got lucky.  The plant itself may deteriorate over time, but I do have a back-up potted elsewhere. Only time will tell.  In any case, when this one had buds, I left it alone out of curiosity, instead of pinching them off, to witness for myself the very slow opening of the flower over a span of weeks.  The first photo was taken perhaps three weeks after initially noticing the buds, and the last photo taken about two to three weeks after.