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. The largest and tallest cactus in the United States, it is both familiar and an object of fascination and curiosity. 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, this book shares precolonial through current scientific findings. The saguaro is charismatic and readily accessible but also decidedly different from other desert flora. 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.

A venerable saguaro cactus stands like a statue in the hot desert landscape, its armlike branches reaching fifty feet into the air. From a distance it appears to be completely still and solitary--but appearances can be deceptive. In fact, this giant tree of the desert is alive with activity. Its spiny trunk and branches are home to a surprising number of animals, and its flowers and fruit feed many desert dwellers. Gila woodpeckers and miniature elf owls make their homes inside the saguaro's trunk. Long-nosed bats and fluttering white doves drink the nectar from its showy white flowers. People also play a role in the saguaro's story: each year the Tohono O'odham Indians gather its sweet fruit in a centuries-old harvest ritual. In this first volume of Sierra Club Books' Tree Tales series, a simple, easy-to-read text and appealing drawings document the life cycle of this amazing cactus tree and the creatures it helps to support. Readers will come away with a better understanding of and a lasting respect for this accomodating giant of the desert.

Hawthorne delivers an exquisitely illustrated picture book about the Saguaro cactus which grows in the Sonoran desert in Arizona and its flower, which blooms only one night a year. Full color.

"Describes the life cycle of the giant saguaro cactus, with an emphasis on its role as a home for other desert dwellers."--Title page verso.

A packrat, carrying fruit from the giant saguaro, is chased by various desert animals and inadvertently helps spread the cactus's seed. Includes information on saguaros.

Ask a child to draw a picture of a cactus, and the result will probably look like a saguaro. Indeed, mass media have made this denizen of the Sonoran Desert universally recognizable, and perhaps just as misunderstood. In Saguaros: Desert Giants, Anna Humphreys and Susan Lowell share true stories about this amazing, anthropomorphic cactus that are at least as intriguing as the folklore. A saguaro can grow to be a towering fifty feet or more and live for as long as two centuries. During rainy seasons, a large saguaro can soak up literally hundreds of gallons of water in its expandable, accordion-folded trunk and arms. For uncounted generations, the Tohono O'odham people in Arizona have harvested the sweat saguaro fruits to make syrup and wine. Profusely illustrated with contemporary and historic photographs and other artwork, Saguaros: Desert Giants celebrates these iconic cacti while arguing that the need to preserve their critical Sonoran Desert habitat is more pressing now than ever.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.