A transcription of the photographed journal pages can be found at the bottom of the page.
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Let’s talk about CACTUSES!
Look. I know it’s “cacti.” I’ve known that since I was, like, three years old. But from the moment we rolled down out of the mountains into the Sonoran Desert where every bit of landscape is spiked with saguaro, I just can’t stop thinking of them as “cactuses.” (I blame the book I recently read about octopuses. That is a correct plural.)
I’ve been places. What seems like lots of places, even, but this part of Arizona is as foreign a place as I have yet to see. I started by gawking at the obvious floral differences as we drove in (do you have any idea how tall saguaro are??) and have continued gawping at every new cactus I’ve encountered as we walk around town. I think all the plants here are cacti, actually. Sometimes they look like grass or bushes or trees, but a closer look soon reveals their succulence and spines.
But the saguaro! Oh, the saguaro! We’ve all seen photos, and of course every cartoon cactus ever drawn is of a Saguaro, but if you’re a rube northerner like me, you have no idea how impressive these monsters are.
Lesson 1: it’s not sa-GWAR-o, it’s sa-WAH-ro. (Thank you, Gary, for saving me from tourist talk.)
Lesson 2: a saguaro without arms is called a spike. Saguaro do not grow any arms until they are 75-100 years old. The tallest Saguaro on record was a spike that stood 78 feet tall until it blew over in 1986. Some old saguaro look exactly like the ones you remember from the Yosemite Sam cartoons of your childhood. Some really old saguaros look more like dozen-armed Mutant Monstrosities. (The largest number of arms ever recorded was 49.) Saguaros can live north of 200 years.
Lesson 3: Saguaros grow really slowly. Once sprouted, a seeding may take 2 years to reach 1/4″ in height. At ten years, it still will not be a full foot tall. To reach the 35-45 feet of a really mature cactus takes well over a hundred years. Fruits, which grow only on the crowns of the arms, contain as many as 2,000 seeds each, because the odds of any seed surviving birds and harsh conditions are almost nil. The fruits are edible but rarely found outside this immediate area because they cannot be stored.
Lesson 4: Saguaro are protected. You can’t chop them down or even remove the wood ribs of an already – deceased one without a permit. Their flowers, which bloom for about a month in April and May, are the Arizona state flower.
Summary: there are ever so many more details, but these were my favorites. I am in total awe of these crazy plants. I think my fascination is due in large part to how improbable they seem. Cactuses the size of four-story buildings with more arms than six octopuses (see what I did there?) full of water growing in a land of frequent drought where the next-tallest plants rarely top 10 feet?
You’ve to see them to really believe them.
Thither & Yon 