50 Fun Facts About Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park is in which U.S. state?

Saguaro National Park is in southern Arizona; its two districts lie on either side of the city of Tucson.

In which Arizona county do both districts of Saguaro National Park lie?

Both districts are in Pima County, whose seat is Tucson; the county's own Tucson Mountain Park adjoins the western district.

Which desert do both districts of the park preserve?

Both districts protect stretches of the Sonoran Desert, the only place on Earth where the saguaro cactus grows naturally.

Which president proclaimed Saguaro National Monument?

Herbert Hoover proclaimed Saguaro National Monument on March 1, 1933, three days before leaving office, after lobbying by Tucson Citizen publisher and former Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock.

Which president added the Tucson Mountain District to Saguaro National Monument?

John F. Kennedy's 1961 proclamation added the Tucson Mountain District, about 15,000 acres carved from Pima County's Tucson Mountain Park, urged on by Arizonan Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.

In what year did Congress make Saguaro a national park?

Congress elevated Saguaro from national monument to national park in 1994; a later appropriations act added another 1,232 acres.

Roughly how many saguaros are estimated to grow in the park?

Park censuses have counted about 1.8 million to 1.9 million saguaros, alongside roughly two dozen other cactus species including fishhook barrel and teddybear cholla.

A saguaro typically grows its first arm at roughly what age?

A saguaro usually sprouts its first arm at 50 to 70 years of age; in the driest spots it can take closer to a century, and some never grow arms at all.

A fully hydrated mature saguaro can weigh up to about how much?

A fully hydrated adult saguaro can weigh 3,200 to 4,800 pounds; it soaks up rain, visibly swells, and lives off the stored water through drought.

Roughly how tall can a mature saguaro grow?

Exceptional saguaros grow up to 60 feet tall, though most mature plants stand around 40 feet; it is the largest cactus in the United States, considered adult at about 125 years.

The saguaro's genus name honours which American industrialist?

The genus Carnegiea honours Andrew Carnegie, whose Carnegie Institution founded the Desert Laboratory in Tucson in 1903; the species name gigantea simply means giant.

In which year did Arizona adopt the saguaro blossom as its state flower?

Arizona's legislature adopted the saguaro cactus blossom as the state flower in 1931; the white, waxy flowers open after sunset and close by the following afternoon.

Which migratory bat is the saguaro's main night-time pollinator, summering in the park?

The lesser long-nosed bat, delisted from the US endangered species list in 2018, laps saguaro nectar by night, leaving claw marks on the flowers; by day honey bees and white-winged doves take over.

Which birds excavate nest holes in saguaros that later shelter elf owls and other species?

Gila woodpeckers and gilded flickers chisel nest holes into living saguaros; the cactus seals each wound with hard callus tissue, and elf owls and other birds reuse the cavities later.

In which months do saguaros mainly bloom?

Saguaros bloom from late April through May and June, each white flower opening at night and lasting less than a day; the fruit ripens in June and July.

The Tohono O'odham harvest saguaro fruit with a long pole made from what?

The tool is called a kuibit, and the June harvest is boiled down into syrup, jam and ceremonial wine.

Which culture, living here between AD 200 and 1450, left petroglyphs and pottery in the park?

The Hohokam lived around Tucson from about AD 200 to 1450, farming corn, beans and squash and gathering cholla buds and saguaro fruit; their petroglyphs survive on boulders in the park.

Which short trail off the Bajada Loop Drive leads to dozens of 800-year-old petroglyphs?

The half-mile Signal Hill Trail climbs to boulders pecked with Hohokam petroglyphs about 800 years old, in the Tucson Mountain District.

Which of the park's two ranges is higher, wetter and part of the Madrean Sky Islands?

The Rincons rise to 8,666 feet and carry pine and mixed conifer forest above the cactus belt, unlike the lower, drier Tucson Mountains.

What is the highest point in the park, at 8,666 feet?

Mica Mountain, at 8,666 feet in the Rincons, is the park's summit; Wasson Peak, at 4,687 feet, is the top of the Tucson Mountains.

Roughly how many Madrean Sky Island ranges step between the Rockies and Mexico's Sierra Madre?

About 40 forested ranges make up the Madrean Sky Islands, stepping stones across seas of low desert between the Rockies and the Sierra Madre; the Rincons are one of them.

'Rincon', as in the Rincon Mountains, is Spanish for what?

Rincón is Spanish for corner or nook; the range's name is said to describe the angled shape of its footprint.

Eruptions that formed the Tucson Mountains left a collapsed caldera roughly how wide?

The Tucson Mountains caldera measured roughly 12 miles across; a granite remnant of its old magma chamber can be seen from the Sus Picnic Area.

Which low-angle fault carried rock from under the Tucson Mountains up to 22 miles east to form the park's eastern range?

Movement on the Catalina detachment fault separated the Tucson Mountains from the rocks beneath them by some 22 miles, leaving the Rincons mostly banded Catalina gneiss with none of the west side's volcanic rock.

Which invasive African grass, first detected in the park in 1989, is its most serious plant threat?

Buffelgrass, imported from Africa in the 1930s as cattle forage, carries fire through the cactus forest; park crews and volunteers hand-pull it, though eradication is considered impossible.

Which Arizona state bird builds football-shaped nests among the park's chollas?

The cactus wren, Arizona's state bird, weaves bulky football-shaped nests among cholla spines and often keeps several for roosting.

Which venomous lizard is native to the park's desert lowlands?

The Gila monster, one of the world's few venomous lizards, spends most of its life underground in the park's lowlands; western diamondback rattlesnakes are the most commonly seen snakes.

Which pig-like mammal, common in the park, is actually a peccary?

Javelina, or collared peccaries, travel in herds through the park's washes and bajadas; despite the look they are not pigs but New World peccaries.

Which strikingly red bird, uncommon elsewhere in the U.S., breeds in the park?

The vermilion flycatcher, a small flame-red bird of the desert Southwest, breeds along the park's washes; the threatened Mexican spotted owl nests in the Rincon high country.

Which park amphibian's tadpoles can become toadlets in little over a week?

Couch's spadefoot spends most of the year in a burrow, emerges with the summer monsoon to breed in temporary pools, and its tadpoles can transform in about nine days.

Which federal programme built the stone ramadas of Saguaro's Tucson Mountain District from 1933 to 1941?

Civilian Conservation Corps crews built the stone picnic ramadas of what was then Pima County's Tucson Mountain Park; CCC crews also built the east side's loop drive in the late 1930s.

Which 800-mile National Scenic Trail crosses the park's Rincon Mountain District?

The Arizona Trail runs about 800 miles from the Mexican border to Utah and crosses the Rincon Mountain District; Congress made it a National Scenic Trail in 2009.

How much hiking trail does the park have?

The park maintains more than 165 miles of hiking trails across both districts; listed hazards include heat, flash floods, cactus spines, cougars, bears and Africanized bees.

Where in the park is overnight camping banned entirely?

The western district, Tucson Mountain, has no campgrounds and bans overnight stays; the eastern district allows wilderness camping by permit, with Manning Camp as its high base.

Manning Cabin, a 1905 retreat in the park's eastern range, was built for Levi Manning, who had served a term as what?

Levi Manning served as mayor of Tucson from 1905 to 1907 and built the cabin as a summer retreat; pack mules haul supplies up to Manning Camp for fire crews and scientists.

What did 19th-century settlers mine in the park to make mortar, leaving six kilns behind?

Settlers quarried limestone and burned it in kilns to make lime for mortar and plaster; kiln ruins survive along east-side trails.

On which Tucson road is the park's Rincon Mountain District visitor center?

The Rincon Mountain District visitor center and the entrance to its loop drive sit on Old Spanish Trail, at Tucson's southeast edge.

Which institution's Natural History Society first pushed in 1920 for a protected saguaro area?

The University of Arizona's Natural History Society proposed a saguaro preserve in 1920, and UA president Homer Shantz, a botanist, took up the cause in 1928.

Which non-profit zoo-and-botanical-garden sits just south of the Tucson Mountain District on Kinney Road?

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum occupies 98 acres leased from Pima County beside the park and exhibits only plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert region.

Which loop drive in the Rincon district, 8.3 miles long, gives access to many of its trails?

Cactus Forest Loop Drive is the paved loop through the Rincon district's cactus forest; the west side's equivalent is the shorter, unpaved Bajada Loop Drive.

Roughly how much of the 92,000-acre park is designated wilderness?

The eastern district alone is about 67,000 acres, nearly three times the size of the western one.

Which generally dry, north-flowing river's watershed holds the park?

Most of the park drains to the Santa Cruz River, a mostly dry river that flows north past Tucson toward the Gila; Rincon Creek, running part of the year, holds the park's largest riparian zone.

What is the name of the visitor center in the park's Tucson Mountain District?

The Red Hills Visitor Center on Kinney Road serves the Tucson Mountain District; the east side's visitor center is named for the Rincon Mountains.

What term describes a saguaro whose growing tip fans out into a wavy ridge?

A cristate saguaro results from fasciation, which sends a seam of abnormal growth fanning across the top of the plant or an arm; only a tiny fraction of saguaros show it.

A saguaro grows from seed so slowly that after two years it may be only how tall?

A two-year-old saguaro may be only a quarter of an inch tall and a ten-year-old barely an inch or so; plants around Tucson grow about twice as fast as those in drier deserts to the west.

A single saguaro fruit contains roughly how many seeds?

Each saguaro fruit holds about 2,000 tiny black seeds; the fruit ripens in June and July, and only a tiny fraction of seeds ever survive to become adult plants.

Roughly how much rain falls each year on the park's desert lowlands?

The park's desert floor receives about 12 inches of rain a year, split between winter fronts and the summer monsoon; the high Rincons get roughly twice as much.

What do the Tohono O'odham call the ceremonial wine made from saguaro fruit?

Nawait is the lightly fermented saguaro-fruit wine drunk at the Tohono O'odham rain ceremony held as the summer monsoon approaches; bahidaj is the fruit and sitol its syrup.

Which two botanists created the genus Carnegiea for the saguaro in 1908?

The genus Carnegiea was erected by Britton and Rose in 1908, splitting the saguaro from Cereus; Engelmann had described it as Cereus giganteus in 1848.

What is the nickname for shooting at saguaros, an act illegal under Arizona state law?

'Cactus plugging' is the local slang for shooting saguaros, which Arizona's native plant law forbids; even builders need permits to move or destroy a saguaro in their way.