Whence
Saguaro cactus
Plant

Where does Saguaro cactus come from?

The saguaro comes from the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and north-western Mexico, and grows wild nowhere else. This giant, many-armed cactus, the classic backdrop of Western films, can stand over 12 metres tall and live for more than 150 years.

A cactus that hates frost

The saguaro is endemic to the Sonoran Desert, growing mainly in western Sonora in Mexico and in Arizona, with only about 30 wild plants known in south-eastern California. It grows from sea level to about 1,400 metres, and cold sets its limits: long frosts kill it, so it is missing from the high deserts of northern Arizona and from New Mexico, Texas and Nevada. Its northern edge, the Hualapai Mountains of Arizona, makes it the northernmost columnar cactus in the Americas.

A slow start in life

A saguaro begins life in the shade of a 'nurse tree', most often a palo verde, ironwood or mesquite. It grows only 2.5 to 4 cm in its first eight years and starts to flower at about 35. In Saguaro National Park, near Tucson, arms usually appear at 50 to 70 years, and in drier places it can take up to 100 years. A saguaro counts as an adult at about 125. Its average lifespan is probably 150 to 175 years, and biologists think some live more than 200.

Flowers, fruit and ribs

Its white, waxy flowers, Arizona's state wildflower, open after sunset between April and June and close the next afternoon; bats, doves and bees pollinate them. The red fruits ripen in June, each holding around 2,000 seeds. The Tohono O'odham and Pima turn the sweet pulp into syrup, knocking the fruit down with long poles made of saguaro ribs, the woody rods inside the stem, which also serve as building material in the wood-poor desert.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · nps.gov ↗

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