2/5/18 Saguaro National Park

We had a lovely day today.  We traveled to the eastern portion of Saguaro National Park - the Rincon Mountain District.  This is not the area we camped at in 1986 so we though we would start our visit here.  As we got to the Visitor Center, we were just in time to join the cactus garden walk.  We learned about many of the desert plants and cacti and ways in which they can be used as food, shampoo and medicine.  We got to taste the flour made from the pods of creosote tree and jelly made from the fruit of the prickly pear cactus (delicious by the way).  It was a short walk, but very informative.  There is one saguaro in the garden that was started from a seed in 1916 and given to the park for their 50th anniversary celebration.  They do not get arms until they are 60-70 years old and 6-10 feet high.  We then joined up with another ranger-led drive and walk tour to see crested saguaros.  Scientists are not sure what causes this, but it happens in many plants (see the photo of the strawberry).  It may be genetic, mutation, environmental factors or some other factor which causes the growing area to develop oddly.  Many of the photos today show the result.  We went on the 8 mile driving loop and stopped several times for 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile hikes to see these cacti.  It seems to occur rarely in the saguaro as the ranger has identified only 50 of the half million saguaros in the park as having this anomaly.  It was delightful 2 hours.  Some of the other pics of are many armed cacti.  We found a chollo with a birds nest in the top.  I took another pic of a damaged chollo to show what the "ribs" or frame looks like.  On the way home, we stopped for a late lunch and we are skipping dinner as we are still full.