We were on our way to church in Green Valley when I spotted this beauty on the south side of Sahuarita Road between Houghton Road and Green Valley. Not wanting to be late for church, I told Shirley we could stop to get some photos on the way home.
I had to navigate my way thru a four-strand, barb wire fence to get close enough to capture this shot... but it was well worth it!
How rare is the crested or cristate saguaro? They say this phenomena happens about one in ten thousand times... and no one knows for sure what causes it to happen. Joe Orman has a website with hundreds of crested saguaros that he has found in Arizona.
Having looked at Joe's website, it was soon apparent that not all crested saguaros are created equal... every one is different... and in my humble opinion this specimen I found yesterday is truly one of the more spectacular.
For example, you can quickly see that this second crested saguaro is not as beautiful as the one above, right? It still is a crested saguaro, but this guy started another arm right out of the side near the top... and this breaks up the symmetry.
So, yesterday was a remarkable day for me... to find not just one... but two crested saguaros within a couple of miles of each other. And both were spotted from a moving car while driving down Sahuarita Road at 60 miles per hour. What are the chances?
Have you seen one of these beauties in nature? Where did you see it?
I have a book with a full page photo of a real beauty taken on the University of Arizona campus here in Tucson.
"It boggles my mind that someone can see life breathed into a baby, watch the grass die and then come to life again, see leaves fall and watch the rebirth of a tree, or gaze on any of the majestic splendour that is this earth and not be overpowered by the presence of an Almighty God!" -Bill McCartney, American football coach at the University of Colorado, and President of Promise Keepers, b.1940
That is pretty fabulous! I had never heard of such a thing.
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