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A park ranger in Tucson showed me a saguaro that grows a whole arm in about 50 years
I was walking the Desert Discovery Trail at Saguaro National Park last fall when a ranger stopped our group and pointed at one cactus with two stubby arms. She said it was probably 90 years old and those arms each took close to 50 years to sprout. Then she said the little pleats on the trunk open up and hold water after a storm, like a paper fan. I keep thinking about how slow that is, a whole human life for one elbow. Does anyone know if there's a way to estimate cactus age without counting arms?
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jakel361mo ago
Man, the arm thing is a bit off. Saguaros usually start growing arms around 50 to 75 years old, but each arm only takes a few years to form once it starts, not 50. You can get a rough age by measuring the height since they grow about an inch a year, though it varies with water.
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