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Saguaros
Wed Jul 30, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook. The saguaro cactus is an enduring
image of the desert west, but saguaros only grow in a very small section of the country. Jeff
Rice reports from the edge of Saguaro National Park in Southern Arizona.
There's a stand of saguaros over here...
Think "desert," and you are likely to picture the saguaro cactus. Twenty feet high, spiny and
green with arms raised like a bank teller in a hold up.
Might get my fingers poked.
The Sonoran desert, which roughly covers southern Arizona and northern
Mexico, is the only place you'll find saguaros, and it's because of the
desert's unique climate. George Montgomery is the curator of botany at the
Arizona Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson.
GM: So many of the caricatures and advertising show saguaros in places where they don't
really exist. They are limited, as are many plants, by weather, essentially...
They love the triple digit heat of summer. But they also need two distinct rainy seasons. The
mild soaking of winter and the torrential monsoons of July and August. They're very
particular.
GM: Very far above Phoenix, it's too dry. In southern Sonora it begins to get way too wet.
And they don't like freezing temperatures, which rules out other nearby deserts. A short frost
can cause a saguaro arm to droop, and a longer frost is deadly.
The older plants and the very young plants definitely could not survive 24 hours subfreezing
temperatures.
Given that saguaros live about 150 to 200 years, if you stand next to one, there's a high
likelihood that you won't freeze to death. You'll also know where you are. Reporting from
the Sonoran Desert in Southern Arizona, I'm Jeff Rice.
Our show is supported by Subaru of America, and The National Science Foundation.
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