1.11 The Great Outdoors - Cacti!

Bestest Friend and I are embarking on a new blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the eleventh day of each month is "The Great Outdoors."
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Harming a saguaro cactus in any manner is illegal by state law in Arizona. I learned this fact from my cab driver on the brief ride from the airport to the hotel on Friday night.  Each saguaro cactus may release millions of seeds in its lifetime, but very few actually survive to become a seedling, let alone become an adult.   While I didn’t actually see any saguaro, except for some used in the landscaping by the airport, I did see a fair number of other cacti while I was in Arizona, including this prickly pear (I’m almost sure it was a prickly pear, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) and lots and lots of barrel cacti.

As we walk around our neighborhood in the Midwest, we often talk about what the landscape would look like if not for human intervention. What native plants would dominate?  How would the wildlife be different?  And, as I walked around the neighborhoods of Tempe, I wondered what could possibly live there natively without human intervention, regular watering, and the invention of air conditioning.

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit To Quit.