The Saguaro Cactus: A Natural History

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.


Author: David Yetman, Alberto Búrquez, Kevin Hultine
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 02/25/2020
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780816540044

About the Author
David Yetman is a research social scientist at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona. His research has focused on peoples and plants of the Sonoran Desert region. His books include The Great Cacti: Ethnobotany and Biogeography and The Organ Pipe Cactus. He is producer and host of the PBS television series In the Americas with David Yetman.

Alberto Búrquez is a researcher at the Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His research focuses on plant-animal interactions, biogeography, and the ecology of dryland plants.

Kevin Hultine is a research ecologist at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and the School of Earth & Sustainability at Northern Arizona University. His research focuses on the ecology, physiology, and climate sensitivity of dryland plants.

Michael Sanderson is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on genomics and evolutionary biology of plants (including cacti), with a special interest in computational methods and challenges.