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Saguaros
Tue Mar 22, 2005
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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