Saguaro Cactus: A Natural History (Southwest Center Series)

The saguaro, with its great size and characteristic shape—its arms stretching heavenward, its silhouette often resembling a human—has become the emblem of the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. This book offers a complete natural history of this enduring and iconic desert plant, gathering everything from the saguaro's role in Sonoran Desert ecology to its adaptations to the desert climate and its sacred place in Indigenous culture, sharing precolonial through current scientific findings.

The largest and tallest cactus in the United States, the saguaro is both familiar and an object of fascination and curiosity. The essays in this book bear witness to our ongoing fascination with the great cactus and the plant's unusual characteristics, covering the saguaro's history of discovery, place in the cactus family, ecology, anatomy and physiology, genetics, and ethnobotany.

The Saguaro Cactus offers testimony to the cactus's prominence as a symbol, the perceptions it inspires, its role in human society, and its importance in desert ecology. This book shares the saguaro's charismatic and readily accessible nature, as well as its decidedly different characteristics from other desert flora.

The saguaro's striking silhouette, with its arms reaching skyward, has become a quintessential representation of the Sonoran Desert region. This book delves into the saguaro's significance, from its ecological function to its cultural and historical importance, providing a comprehensive account of this iconic desert plant.

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