Saguaro cacti are only found in the Sonora Desert, which covers much of the Southwestern US and part of Mexico. Yet much of the public thinks plants like this can be found in any desert. They've become intertwined with the whole idea of deserts.
There's some irony in that. Think of the Spanish explorers who surveyed the Sonora Desert. They were familiar with the concept of deserts. They were not prepared, however, to see these giant, spiny, non-trees. We think of them as generic but they were once wildly novel.
2 comments:
Huh, whaddaya know? I've spent my life as one of those people who thought saguaro cacti grew on every desert, well, every American desert. I can't say I thought they must be somewhere in the Sahara but never photographed.. or maybe the Kalahari, or the Gobi, or the Atacama.. There really are a lot of deserts in the world. It seems the Sonoran is unique in many ways that must have surprised the Spanish explorers.
I did know that saguaro cacti bloom in the spring and that they're home to many beautiful birds.
One thing it goes to show is how many of these cacti a single desert can support. While deserts are of course dry and hostile--to us at least--a big one has its own flora. Each dessert has plants that are adapted to it--although not a lot in the case of Antarctica, which is technically a desert. This one just happened to catch the public imagination, which likely has to do with the Sonora being near Hollywood.
They look quite eye-catching with their flowers in bloom. The phainopepla is quite a pretty bird.
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