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State flower<br />
enriches<br />
the Copper<br />
Corridor<br />
BY DAVID SOWDERS<br />
Assistant Editor<br />
In the last weeks of 1901,<br />
the Arizona Republican<br />
newspaper observed that<br />
“misinformation will travel<br />
farther and faster than the truth<br />
can ever hope to go.” They referred<br />
to a New York paper’s<br />
forecast of the saguaro cactus’<br />
“utter extinction” due to the<br />
building of irrigation systems.<br />
The giant cactus’ distinctive<br />
David Sowders/Copper Corridor<br />
A saguaro in bloom along<br />
the Globe-Young Highway.<br />
white blossom had just been<br />
named Arizona’s territorial<br />
flower, and the Eastern paper<br />
predicted that Arizona would<br />
soon have to pick a new<br />
bloom.<br />
Of course neither prediction<br />
came true; 20 years later,<br />
in March 1931, Governor<br />
George W.P. Hunt – a native of<br />
Globe, Arizona – signed a bill<br />
designating the saguaro blos-<br />
David Sowders/Copper Corridor<br />
som as Arizona’s state flower,<br />
which it remains today. And<br />
not only is this towering cactus<br />
(Carnegeia gigantea) still<br />
around, its flowers continue<br />
to grace the late-spring Copper<br />
Corridor; from just east<br />
of Apache Junction, where<br />
travelers can hike the trails<br />
(including a desert botanical<br />
walk) of Silly Mountain Park,<br />
to near the Gila Valley community<br />
of Fort Thomas<br />
– and up through Roosevelt<br />
to the Tonto Basin<br />
area.<br />
The Arizona Native<br />
Plant Society has<br />
dubbed the saguaro “the<br />
keystone plant and icon<br />
of the Sonoran Desert<br />
(https://aznps.com/arizona-state-flower),”<br />
and<br />
the plant’s white, waxy<br />
flowers bloom in late<br />
spring (May-early June,<br />
with peak blossoming<br />
in May). One cactus can bear<br />
scores of flowers, which open<br />
at night and close for good the<br />
next afternoon. But their story<br />
continues, as the flowers turn<br />
to plump red fruit that ripens<br />
in late June and early July –<br />
fruit that Native Americans,<br />
including members of the San<br />
Carlos Apache tribe, continue<br />
their tradition of harvesting.<br />
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