Saguaro National Park is actually in two separate districts, one on the west of Tucson, and the other on the east. As you would expect, the entire area has a lot of saguaros, but visiting the park itself had a special perk -- the rangers were a wonderful resource for pointing us towards the rare crested saguaros in the area, of which there are four.
This was my favorite -- it is in the eastern part of the park, about a mile down a desert hiking trail. This was the only one of the four to also have arms:
Here are the others -- the first one was also within the park boundary, but the last two were on private land (but easily seen from the road):
2 comments:
I still don't understand what part is the crest.
What causes the crest? Is it due to damage of the terminal bud on the cactus? Way cool -- I don't recall ever seeing a crested saguaro and will have to hunt one down the next time I return to Arizona.
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