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The saguaro cactus, Cereus giganteus or Carnegiea gigantean, meaning gigantic candle, is found only in the Sonoran Desert, which is in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. There it stands quietly towering over its desert friends, watching and waiting ever so peacefully. Although it may look simple and strange to the eye, it is actually very complicated and diverse in every way, shape, and form. Come along with me now as I tell you about my adventures with the saguaro cactus. |
I have lived around saguaro cactuses all my life in Tucson, Arizona, and have seen this cactus in all its different shapes and sizes. They can grow to be almost 80 feet tall and weigh as much as several tons. Knowing that the saguaro cactus commonly lives to be about 200 years old, I realized that all these different shapes and sizes must represent the cactus at its various stages of life. I then began to wonder, what are the stages of life of the saguaro cactus? To find this out, I decided to explore the hillsides of Sabino Mountain and the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains near the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area and the Coronado National Forest. |
