A beloved crested saguaro named Gumby died at Tohono Chul in Tucson in July. The cactus was estimated to be well over 100 years old and was a favorite among visitors.
Crested saguaros get their name from the fan shaped growths that form at the top of them as the result of a mutation. Jack Dash, the gardens and facilities manager at Tohono Chul, described that abnormality.
“Cells that are normally dividing upward start dividing outward,” Dash said.
Gumby, at 20 feet with multiple arms, arrived at the botanical garden in 1997.
“[Gumby had] bird's nests bored into his skin that resembled eyes,” Dash said. “So he had these very like human characteristics that made him really noticeable and also, I would say, really lovable.”
Those characteristics are what earned the cactus its name, after the famous green claymation character who made his TV debut in the 1950s.
“Because we have nearly 100,000 visitors a year, and Gumby is really a prominent feature of the park, people have come to know and love and appreciate Gumby over the course of, you know, in some cases, a decades-long relationship with this plant,” Dash said.
But this summer, Gumby developed bacterial necrosis and collapsed.
“When he collapsed, within a day, I was receiving messages of condolences, emails, texts, phone calls from both staff and volunteers, but also from our wider network of visitors,” Dash said.
But Gumby’s story doesn’t end here.
“Even though Gumby has moved on to cactus heaven, as his body decomposes, it's going to generate new life,” Dash said.
Gumby will form what scientists call a “rot-pocket” — allowing fungi and insects to feed off moisture stored in its cells. Snakes and lizards might also take shelter under the fallen cactus and the seedlings of future cacti could use the remaining nutrients to germinate and grow.
“There is a hyperactive, localized ecosystem that exists just around this one fallen cactus,” Dash said.
Under Arizona law, it’s illegal to dig up protected native plants like saguaros without a permit. So Tohono Chul doesn’t expect to get another crested saguaro anytime soon.
In fact, part of what makes crested saguaros so treasured is their rarity. Noemí Hernández Castro is the cactus specialist at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.
“One in every 10,000 saguaros will be crested,” Hernández Castro said.
DBG is home to about 15,000 cacti and just one crested saguaro.
“We have tons of visitors that come specifically asking for this monstrous plant that we have, and we instantly know that they're referring to the crested saguaro,” Hernández Castro said.
The plant in Phoenix is about 18 feet tall and about 60 years old. It doesn’t have a special name, but throughout the garden’s history, Hernández Castro said they’ve had at least five others, usually salvaged from construction sites or seized from plant poachers.
“People go out there and you would not believe it, but they do take large saguaros,” Hernández Castro said.
Like a crested saguaro named Numero Uno that was rescued in Nevada and acquired by the garden in 1988.
“The cactus salvager who took it claimed that he obtained it legally, but he had just extracted it from the wild,” Hernández Castro said.
So that cactus was donated to the garden, but transplanted saguaros have lower survival rates. That’s part of why a group of crested saguaro fans has taken it upon themselves to document all the ones they find in the wild.
Pat Hammes is a founding member of the Crested Saguaro Society. She said it started when she and a fellow member of a separate hiking club were climbing mountains in 2005.
“We had seen a few crested saguaros out in the desert, thinking they were really unique and special,” Hammes said. “So he said, ‘oh, let's find as many as we can find.’”
Now 20 years later, Hammes and her fellow “Crest Questers” have documented nearly 3,000 plants, giving some of them names along the way, like Methuselah and the Menorah.
“[The Menorah] had a large crest and then it had eight arms coming out of the top of the crest,” Hammes said.
Hammes used to go out searching every weekend, holiday and vacation. At 81 years old, she goes out with the group just a few times a year, but still loves the hunt and the cacti just as much.
“It's kind of like having any other long-term interest,” Hammes said. “If you have a pet or you have kids or you have a neighbor or whatever it might be that you really care about, you keep in contact with them.”
And if there’s one thing these cactus aficionados want people to remember, it’s that native desert plants, like Gumby, are best appreciated where they grow naturally and not when moved illegally.
-
Cataloging information from the Confluence may also be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower — while the Trump administration is eyeing energy projects on tribal lands. -
From Spokane, Wash. to Pueblo County, Colo., fast-moving fires have again wreaked havoc in neighborhoods this summer. Now, a network of scientists, fire professionals and other experts have joined forces to seek research-based solutions to the problem. -
Those in the Grand Canyon on Aug. 29 knew the risks, but this storm packed an extra punch, washing out key footbridges and doing more damage to infrastructure than previous decades of turbulent water. -
About 48 miles of the Upper Verde River and Sycamore Creek west of Sedona were granted the Tier 3 Outstanding Arizona Waters designation this week. -
Mexico’s environmental protection agency is cleaning up more than 3,000 gallons of sulfuric acid that spilled when a tractor trailer overturned on a highway not far from the Arizona border.
