Mi Amigo, Saguaro

Mi Amigo ...

THE STORY IS TOLD of a periodic drunkard who found himself, in coming out of a July spree, in a small southern Arizona town. Although the season's temperature may have aided his hallucination, sight of the great, spine-covered saguaros (sa-wah'-roes) rising like somber spectres from the shimmering desert convinced him that he had not only passed into the Hereafter but that he was, so to speak, on the wrong side of the millennial tracks. So real was this frightful impression that, when he finally recovered sufficiently to believe the emphatic assurances of his companions, his thankfulness found expression in a pledge of abstinence which he has kept faithfully ever since.

Although residents of the southwestern desert find nothing infernal about these vegetable mastodons, first-time visitors are almost always awed by the majestic giants. In their desert setting, surrounded by other spiny, thorny, and prickery plants, these hulking pachyderms do present an appearance of grotesque unworldli ness readily associated with the Nether Regions. Regardless of the publicity given the saguaro, or Giant Cactus, in travel literature, the actual presence of such a living creature seems to be doubted even by the credulous. Many consider it a commercial trademark of the Southwest sprouting from the fertile brain of some adver tising man.

It is not surprising that so few people are familiar with the saguaro. Except for a smallnumber of lonesome plants in three restricted and isolated localities in southeastern California, this species (known to botanists as Carnegiea gigantea or Cereus gigantea) occurs in the United States only throughout southwestern Arizona. Aside from the populous cities of Phoenix and Tucson and a number of towns in the agricultural and mining portions of the district, this is a land of cattle range and Indian reservations; one of the relatively sparsely settled sections of our country. Homeland of the plant extends southward along the east side of the Gulf of California a considerable distance into the State of Sonora, Mexico.

SAGUARO

number of lonesome plants in three restricted and isolated localities in southeastern California, this species (known to botanists as Carnegiea gigantea or Cereus gigantea) occurs in the United States only throughout southwestern Arizona. Aside from the populous cities of Phoenix and Tucson and a number of towns in the agricultural and mining portions of the district, this is a land of cattle range and Indian reservations; one of the relatively sparsely settled sections of our country. Homeland of the plant extends southward along the east side of the Gulf of California a considerable distance into the State of Sonora, Mexico.

In the United States, the northward spread as well as the elevational extensions of the saguaro are governed largely by winter temperatures. It has been found that the saguaro cannot endure temperatures below 17 degrees Fahrenheit, and cannot stand continued freezing weather longer than 19 hours. At latitudes or elevations where these limits are exceeded, saguaro cannot survive. The westward range of the saguaro is apparently limited by the extreme aridity of the desert of southern California and by the fact that rain occurs there only in winter. The giant cactus prefers rolling or hilly topography with coarse, rocky soil; and attains its densest stands, true cactus forests, along the bases of eroded desert mountain ranges. One of the most spectacular of these saguaro forests is located at the base of No lover of cold-weather, the saguaro lives principally in the arid region of southern Arizona and northwestern Sonora.

In the Tanque Verde Mountains east of Tucson, and has been proclaimed Saguaro National Monument. In this manner the Federal Government, through the National Park Service, is protecting and making accessible to the public a superb stand of these desert giants, a natural phenomenon considered of nation-wide importance and interest. In a no less worthy manner the State of Arizona has glorified the saguaro by declaring its magnificent, creamy wax-like blossom the State Flower.

Although a stranger to the great part of our citizenry, the saguaro is really a substantial old-timer in the history of the nation. Many a grizzled veteran of today was a husky young-ster when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Casteñada, chronicler of the famous Coronado Expedition of 1540-42, writes of “a great thistle with fruits which open like a pomegranate.” The name saguaro (also spelled sahuaro, suwarrow, zahuaro, and sauhara) is apparently the Spaniards’ attempt to spell the Indian (probably Papago) name for the giant cactus. This name, as taken from its Indian pronunciation, was in common usage long before the plant was described botanically by Emory in 1848. Throughout the historical records left by the zealous Spanish padres, the early explorers, the soldiers, pioneers, and settlers of this region, references to the saguaro express somewhat the same astonishment at the presence of this peculiar botanical giant as does today's newcomer to southern Arizona.

To the business man who deplores the fact that such a large and abundant plant is not being used commercially, the list of uses to which the various parts of this desert totem pole are put by man and beast comes as something of a surprise. Castetter and Bell in their “Aboriginal Utilization of the Tall Cacti of the American Southwest” state, “In many ways, it (the saguaro) is the most important to the aborigines of any plant native to the region.” Early records of the Spaniards contain references to the fruits, called pitahayas (pit-ah'-yahs), of the large, columnar varieties of cacti, which fruits formed a major part of the diet of the native human inhabitants. These fruits, plucked from the arm-tips of the tall plants and dried or otherwise preserved by the desert Indians, played an important role in maintaining the strength and vigor of those hardy Spanish Jesuits who spread Christianity and rudiments of European civilization throughout the Sonoran desert. From aboriginal times until the present, the Papago and to a lesser extent the Pima, in midsummer have harvested the ripe fruits of the saguaro and organ pipe cacti, the season being one of festivity and jollity. The long, slender ribs taken from skeletons of dead saguaro spliced together with agave (ah-gah'-ve) fibers and tipped with spearlike prongs enable the Indians to remove the fruit which grow at the end of the long saguaro arms high above the ground.

The saguaro grows to great heights, attains a venerable old age in the desert regions of Arizona. Man has good reason to feel insignificant in this area.

The juicy pulp of the fruit is taken to camp, soaked to remove the seeds, and boiled, the liquid being reduced to a syrup. Seeds are dried and stored for winter use when they are ground into meal as needed. The pulp is boiled down to a sweet, sticky mass and preserved as jam. There is little doubt that saguaro fruit often served to defeat famine in ancient times when other food sources failed because of extended drouth. The harvest season, now as then, terminates with the most important and hi larious ceremonies of the year. Quantities of fermented saguaro and organ pipe cactus fruit juice are consumed accompanied by dancing, singing, and oratory and an uproarious good time. This drinking ceremony is said to bring rain, and initiates the Papago calendar year.

The anatomy of a saguaro consists of a cylin drical framework of long, slender poles fused at the constricted base. This skeleton supports a great mass of pulpy tissue covered with a tough, spine-bearing rind or skin. When the plant dies, the tissue dries, sloughs off, and weathers away leaving the frame of wooden ribs. These poles, long and relatively straight, serve the Indians in a variety of ways. From them are fashioned poles for removing ripe pitahayas from the tips of the high saguaro arms. Cut to lengths, the ribs, with the tough, green wands of the ocotillo (oh-koh-tee-yoh) form the walls of the mud-plastered Indian houses. Placed across beams supported by poles, they are the framework on which reeus are laid to make the shades of ramadas beneat which the Papago and Pima home life is carried on during the long, sweltering, desert summers. Even the rails of cattle and horse cor rals are sometimes constructed of saguaro ribs.

Although the use of the saguaro is more practical in Indian homes than in those of the white man, many modern houses contain articles constructed from the wood of this unique plant. Odd-shaped ribs are fashioned into canes, picture frames, and other types of cabinet work. Portions of the skeleton make ornamental posts of most attractive appearance, and are used for mounting signs or road markThe beauty and stately magnificence of the saguaro makes the Arizona landscape dis tinct. Visitors for the first time to saguaro land feel they are in another world. JOSEF MUENCH ers. Saguaro wood, however, has such a high mineral content that it soon dulls edged tools used in working it. Several varieties of birds eat the ripe fruit and seeds, among them the rapidly dwindling game birds, the White-winged Dove. Rodents eagerly consume such of the fruits as fall to the ground. Flycatchers come to the blossoms in numbers to feast on the hordes of insects attracted by the nectar and pollen of the glowing tiaras of bloom which, in May and June, crown the glorified branch-tips of each plant. Gila (hee'-lah) Woodpeckers and flick ers nest in deep pockets which they drill in the pulpy saguaro tissue. Sap coats the inside of each pocket drying to form a hard, smooth varnish. Range of the Gild ed Flicker is ap parently identical with that of the saguaro in which it nests. After the

Nature built a perfect machine in the saguaro to survive life on the desert. Its secret is not its ability to drink deeply, but to hold moisture and expend it carefully.

You'll never find two saguaro exactly the same. And occasionally, if you watch for them, you'll find some rare humorists with cauliflowered ears that give them a punch-drunk apearance. You'll find the saguaro with all sorts of shapes and personalities, and when you have been around them long enough, you'll grow to love them all.

run-off. The rest of the year is normally dry, but the saguaro fears it not. Like a great, green, corrugated water tower it stands in grim defiance of blazing sun and drying wind. So retentive of moisture is the rind-covered flesh that an injury may apparently kill the plant; pulp of the trunk dries and falls away leaving a green arm or two rising from a skeleton of drab, bare poles. Through the winter it stands, unable, at least, to take up water from the lifegiving supply which rain, again, has brought to the desert. Comes spring and, most spectacular of miracles, atop a green arm rising from the months-dry trunk, buds appear and, in final glory, a crown of blooms greets the May. The still living arm has retained enough moisture from the previous year to produce buds, unfold its flowers, and mature fruit in a last supreme effort to reproduce its kind. Nature is notoriously prodigal in reproduction, and in the saguaro she shows an exceptional disregard for seed mortality. During its long and fruitful lifetime, the saguaro produces seeds by the billion yet, on an average, but one or two live to become mature plants. Of the unbelievably few seeds which find conditions suitable for germination, only a small percentage survive the first years. Growth of the young plant is surprisingly slow, a 30 year-old youngster being barely three feet high. From then on, growth is more rapid and a sapling of 70 summers is ready to put out an arm or two. Saguaros may begin to blossom when eight or ten feet tall, flowering to four inches in a normal year, but many-branched individuals must divide this addition among the numerous arms, hence show very little extension of stature. A 45-foot saguaro is an exception, and only a few are on record with a measured height of over 50 feet. No positive method of determining a saguaro's age has been found, but indications point to a limit of approximately 200 years.

The saguaro is the Mayflower of the desert, Arizona's Queen-of-the-May; with the maypole thrown in for good measure. At this season the plant, at all times imposing in its dignity, becomes a thing of rare beauty. The tip of each arm gleams with a bright coronet of large, white-petaled, golden-centered blossoms, These blooms open at night and begin to close, or wither, soon after noon of the following day. They do not open again. Each arm-tip is crowded with buds in various stages of development, those exposed most fully to the sun opening first. More than 100 buds may be found on the tip of one arm, sometimes bursting from the side of the branch as if there were not room on top and some had spilled over. Larger plants may have more than 200 arms. From one to more than a dozen flowers on each arm are open daily during the blossoming season which, for one plant, lasts about a month. By the time the final buds have opened, the first are maturing as eggshaped fruits. When fully ripe, these split open, the parts curling back to expose a bright scarlet inner lining and deep red pulp full of a multitude of tiny black seeds. Insipidly sweet with a flavor somewhat like that of watermelon, the seed-filled pulp has the crunchy consistency of a ripe fig. The scarlet fruits are visible from afar and have given rise to the widespread story that the blossoms of the saguaro are red, not white.

Of the millions of saguaro growing in the desert of southwestern Arizona, it is safe to say that no two are exactly alike. Some are tall, gaunt, and armless; others heavy set and barrelchested with many arms crowded together; others have sprawling limbs, some twisted and curved, some bent sharply downward. This remarkable diversity of figure is further complicated by an occasional malformed individual with a peculiar cauliflower-ear type of crest. Looking for these cristate forms becomes a