Take a good look at the desert you're driving through, because it's a special one — this is the Sonoran Desert, and it is, in a strange way, the richest and greenest desert on the whole planet. The reason is rain: unlike most deserts, the Sonoran gets two rainy seasons, gentle winter rains and dramatic summer monsoon storms, and that double drink lets an astonishing amount of life hang on out here.
And the king of it all is standing all around you: the saguaro. Those giant, many-armed cactuses are the signature of this desert and they grow wild in only this one corner of the United States, nowhere else. And they are old — a big saguaro with several arms can be a hundred and fifty, two hundred years old. Here's the thing that surprises people: a saguaro doesn't even grow its first arm until it's around seventy-five years old. So that towering, many-armed giant on the hillside was a seedling before Arizona was a state, maybe before the Civil War. In late spring they crown themselves with white blossoms — the state flower of Arizona — and their red fruit has fed the desert's people and animals forever. Treat them with respect; they're protected by law, and they're the slow, patient elders of this whole landscape. Drive on through the cactus forest.
Photo: Angwinar · CC0
