How Does the Saguaro Cactus Work?

only cactus on the planet that looks like that. In spite of its iconic silhouette made popular in Hollywood, Western films and Looney Tunes, of most people have never seen one in real life, as it only grows in a small area of the American Southwest and northern Mexico. Suarrows are the tallest North American cacti, native to and common throughout the Sonoran Desert in the southwestern corner of the United States and northwestern Mexico. Or they can be the tallest,

they grow very slowly. At the age of ten years a soorrow might still be less than two inches high that's less than five centimeters, but over their entire lifespan, which can be over one hundred and fifty years. They can grow as much as forty to sixty feet tall that's twelve to eighteen meters. They don't always grow their iconic arms, but they can grow over twenty five of them, and when they're fully hydrated and thriving, they can weigh

over thirty two hundred pounds that's fifteen hundred kilos. Because of their size, soarrows are important to the local ecosystem as they provide food and shelter for various desert animals, and because they're often the tallest thing standing in the desert landscape, they can fill the niche that's usually occupied by trees. They are the desert go to for nesting and perching birds and protection for other animals, and once a sorrow has died and fallen, its decomposing body provides

important organic matter to the desert ecosystem. A sowarro cacti have also been an important natural resource for the indigenous peoples of the Sonoran Desert before the article. This episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email with Kat Rumbley, marketing and media manager at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona. She said, the tohono o Odam Seri and other local peoples have used sowaro as a food

plant and used sowaro ribs as construction material. Many members of the tohono Ohodam nation still harvest toarrow fruit to this day, as the harvest marks their new year and provides them with sowarro syrup for the year to come. In the cultural traditions of the tahono Ohodam, the soarros are considered people the ancestors of today's tahono Ohodam. While

some other cacties spread by vegetative reproduction essentially cloning. A soarows reproduced by seed which they grow in stout pretty cone shaped flowers that are white with a creamy yellow center. It's the state flower of Arizona, and they require a pollinator to get those flowers pollen from plant to plant. A Rumbley explained, flowers of the sowarrow are pollinated by the Lesser long nosed bat and the Mexican long tongued bat at night, and by bees and birds such as

the white winged dove during the day. Soorrow fruits develop right before summer monsoon rainfall and serve as a critical food and moisture source for animals after the famine period of dry early summer. Those fruits are green on the outside as they develop, and can blush pinkish when they mature, and many split open in a way that honestly looks a little like a demigorgon from Stranger Things, but instead of a gaping mall of teeth, they have bright red

flesh and many small black seeds. The fruit is very sweet and can be eaten raw or processed into jams, syrups, fruit leather, wine, or non alcoholic drinks. The seeds are nutty and can be eaten raw or dried, and ground and flour, which can be used in baked goods like cookies, crackers,

or flatbreads, or to make a tasty porridge. If the fruits aren't harvested when the heavy monsoon rains come in midsummer in early autumn, they're knocked from the tops of the plant to the base and can be carried by floods to be established in new spots. Their seeds are also spread by animals that eat their fruits, and perhaps especially ants which berry a surplus of sowarrow seeds in

their nests for their larvae to eat. Rumbly said, the conditions for successful sowarrow seed germination are relatively specific, so you'll notice large cohorts of cacti that are all the same age due to establishment in u years. With these specific conditions, saros have a pretty broad geographic range for a plant that's so specifically designed for one ecosystem, but cold is their kryptonite. They avoid both the cold air drainage basins in the lowest areas of the Snaran Desert

as well as any elevations high enough to have much frost. Therefore, soarrows keep to the warm air belts in the foothills at the base of desert mountains within their range. The sowarro currently faces threats such as wildfires, increased summer temperatures, and inconsistent rainfall due to climate change, as well as loss of habitat due to livestock, invasive species, and people

building a bunch of stuff. Rumbley said development and increased urbanization within its habitat removes mature plants, eliminates the favorable areas for suarrows to establish, and influences climate change by producing urban heat eyeland that become inhospitable to soarows. A mature soorrow can produce about a million seeds every year, but even under good conditions, only a few will survive

to become mature cacti themselves. Changes in rainfall patterns affect the establishment of young soarrows, as the younglings need dependable watering and they suffer under constant record breaking high temperatures. And the introduction of grazing to desert landscapes has reduced nurse plant cover and is thought to be negatively affecting sowarrow establishment. A rumbly said human introduced invasives such as buffal grass, create fodder for wildfires that would not traditionally

be able to spread in the sparse desert landscape. The soarrows are ill adapted to fire, as are many desert endemic species, and are not able to recover from significant burn events. A cattle ranchers first brought buffalo grass to the area in the nineteen thirties, hoping to feed their herds and control erosion. Buffalgrass is now considered invasive. It can double an abundance in as little as three years.

Removal efforts have been ongoing since nineteen ninety and a number of measures have proven successful without harming other local wildlife. To learn more, including how you can help, check out friendsofsowaro dot org. That's Friends of sag Uaro dot org. They're not a sponsor, we just think they're pretty cool. Today's episode is based on the article the Souaro cactus is an iconic symbol of the Americansouthwest on how Stuffworks

dot com, written by Jesslynshields. The brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the Aheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.