Saguaro National Park is located near Tucson, AZ. There is actually a west and an east park area. The pictures on this page were taken in the west park area.The Park is within the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert is described as a young desert, 10,000 years old. As a young desert, it has an amazingly wide variety of flora and fauna. However, among all this variety, saguaros stand out.
As you can see from the first picture, there is a virtual forest of saguaros in the park. They grow from the bottom of ravines to the tops of the mountains. It's safe to say that saguaros are plentiful and widespread in Arizona. Saguaros are fully protected by law, not only in the Park but throughout Arizona.
Saguaros may live to be more than 150 years old, towering more than 50 feet above the desert, and weighing 8 tons or more! They grow extremely slowly. After 15 years a saguaro may be barely a foot tall. After about 75 years of age, a saguaro may grow its first arm. The interior structure of a saguaro is woody as you can see in the third picture. These woody ribs were used for a variety of purposes by native peoples in the Southwest.
The final picture is of a barrel cactus in bloom.
2 comments:
Gee Tom, I thought they were pictures of you----we haven't seen you in so long we've all pretty much forgotten what you look like (just kidding).
Still very much WINTER here!
Ken Will
Beautiful!
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