Ho, Ho, a Boojum!

The word “boojum” was assigned to the present possessor of that name in 1922 by Godfrey Sykes, an English expatriate and amateur botanist of Tucson, Arizona. Sykes learned that specimens of the bizarre giant plant, then known only to exist in Baja California, Mexico, might also be found across the Sea of Cortés in Sonora. Arriving at Puerto Libertad, he aimed his telescope at a curious object perched on a craggy slope. Inspired by the famous Lewis Carroll fantasy poem The Hunting of the Snark, Godfrey uttered the now famous “Ho, ho, a boojum, definitely a boojum!” “Like nothing else on earth!” penned naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch, an immediate convert to the boojum mystique. Krutch described one twenty-foot-high boojum arch as the “gateway into a wizard's garden.” “Out of this world!” exclaimed a leading boojum authority, Dr. Robert R. (Boojum Bob) Humphrey, recalling his initial walk among a forest of boojums.

“I popped up from the rabbit hole,” he said, “and felt there should be dinosaurs walking around.” The amazing boojum tree, cousin of Arizona's ocotillo and companion of giant cacti, thrives in northern Mexico, unrivaled as the tallest (the record is eighty-six feet) and strangest, yet perhaps most hauntingly beautiful plant in the Sonoran Desert.

Though called trees, boojums actually are perennial flowering succulents, isolated giant relicts believed unchanged in appearance since the Mesozoic Era 160 million years ago. Evolving during wet climatic times, boojums adapted over generations to desertification, becoming specialized as xerophytes, i.e., plants able to resist drought by collecting and storing moisture.

Structurally, the boojum's meshed cylindrical woody framework functions just like the vertically ribbed skeletons of the saguaro and cardon cacti. Housed inside the cylinder is pithy, thin-walled water storage tissue. On the outside, the boojum's tough waxy skin guards against dehydration.

A member of the candlewood family, which includes the more familiar ocotillo of Arizona's desert areas, the boojum sprouts leaves after rainstorms. In wet years, several crops may emerge. At the tips appear small tassels of cream-colored flowers.

(BELOW AND OPPOSITE PAGE) The range of the boojum tree is severely limited. These are in Baja California.

After summer and winter rains, the barren plants sprout small round leaves which soon yellow and drop at the onset of drought. From July to October, creamcolored blossom clusters develop on mature boojums atop the main trunks and regenerated arms. Seeds disperse in winter when winds sprinkle the pale, slightly finned capsules in flurries.

The requirements for seeds to germinate and take root are so critical the annual crop is successful only once every twenty years. Then the plant may need a whole century of development before the first flower appears. The potential life span is 700 years.

But despite all these interesting facts, what I particularly like about boojums is that they make such appealing subjects for my photography. As Dr. Krutch said: “Like nothing else on earth!” Note: In Arizona you can find boojum trees on display at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2021 North Kinney Road, Tucson; Boyce-Thompson Southwestern Arboretum, Superior; the Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix; Joseph Wood Krutch Memorial Garden, University of Arizona, Tucson; and the Tucson Botanical Gardens, 2150 North Alvernon Way, Tucson.