Saguaro Down

01/18/2010

I had to run out to Avra Valley today, which took me through the Saguaro National Monument.  On my return trip, I thought this would be a great place to stop for todays picture.  Unfortunately, the only camera in the truck was my old one. 

This is all that is left over when a saguaro's life is over.  Even though it is dead, the saguaro carcass still provides valuable habitat for rodents and insects of all types.  For those of you who don't live around here, the saguaro cactus is truely an amazing cactus.  We've all seen them in the old westerns but how much do you really know about them.  Saguaro grow only up to about an inch per year.  Slower in the drier desert.  Once full grown, they average about 30 feet tall and have about five arms.  It takes a saguaro about SEVENTY FIVE years to grow it's first arm.  I find it amazing that I could plant a saguaro at the birth of a child and chances are, that child would be dead and buried before the saguaro sprouted it's first arm.  The saguaro also blooms.  It is actually the state flower of Arizona.  Although each cactus can have up to 200 flowers, they don't all bloom at the same time.  For a period of about a month, a few open each night at dusk secreting their nectar for bats and other birds to help polinate.  By the middle of the next day, those flowers have closed, never to open again.  If polination has occurred, they will produce a purple fruit that contains their seeds.