Sedona, Arizona: May is saguaro time in Arizona. Jutting out of the desert floor like the big foam fingers wielded by sports fans (We're #1!), the saguaro is undoubtedly the universal symbol of the desert Southwest. (Wanna make an Arizonan cringe? Pronounce it "sa-gwar-o." Works every time. It's "sa-WAH-ro.") May is the season for the blooming of the saguaro flowers, themselves symbols of the desert's strange, contrary sort of beauty that's often missed if you don't look closely enough or at the right time.
Clustered at the ends of the arms or main stem of the giant cactus, the saguaro buds unfold into waxy, cream-colored flowers with a multitude of bright yellow stamens. The flowers only last about 18 hours, cracking open around sunset, fully unfurling around midnight, then closing up by noon. It's tradition for some folks in the Sonoran desert to take a moonlight stroll during blossom season to catch the heady, honey-jasmine scent of the saguaro on the night breeze, before these beauties of the night disappear for another year.
People aren't the only ones excited by the blooming of the saguaro. Doves and insects are crazy about the nectar, and when the birds and the bees go to bed, the
bats get busy sipping and pollinating at night. The ephemeral nature of the flowers makes the blooming saguaros hubs of manic activity deep into the night.
The fruit, of course, is the point of all that poetic blooming and speed-pollinating. The sagauaro fruit is egg-shaped, about 3" long with a fleshy, bright-red interior, considered good eatin' by critters and humans alike. Birds and bats eat the fruits right off the arms, and coyotes, skunks and other varmints gobble up what falls to the ground. Those of us with thumbs like to eat the fruits raw, as the Pima and Tohono O'odham tribes have for centuries, or cook them down into a delicious syrup for jelly, jam and candy.
They're hardy yet sensitive plants, limited in range by frost, elevation, precipitation and soil consistency to the Sonoran desert around Tuscon, Phoenix, and Sonora, Mexico. On the drive from Sedona down to Phoenix, in the space of just a mile or two, you pass through the border between the no-saguaro-zone of the frost-prone high desert and right into weird, other-worldly saguaro forests, where they congregate on the desert foothills like strange, silent mobs, pointing at the sky.
In prime habitat they can be very durable, reaching up to 50 feet tall and living up to 200 years, withstanding everything from wind storms to lightning strikes. A saguaro grows very slowly at first, only a couple of inches a year, and isn't really considered "mature" until around 120 years (which makes 150 the new 30?). They develop branches at around 50 years in areas with ample precipitation, and begin flowering around 30 to 35.
Article by Sarah Horton.
