Top: Saguaro, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2014; Below: Cardon, Parque Nacional de los Cardones, Salta, Arge
Top: Saguaro, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2014; Below: Cardon, Parque Nacional de los Cardones, Salta, Argentina, 2007.It is amazing how similar these two species of cactus look, though they grow in very different arid environments and are only distant relatives. The saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) is a lowland plant, growing from sea level to somewhat less than 1000 meters in the hot Sonoran desert of the SW United States and extreme northern Mexico. The cardon (Echinopsis atacamensis), on the other hand, grows in the cool highland deserts of Andean South America at elevations ranging from about 2000 meters to about 3500 meters above msl. The cacti (Cactaceae spp.) are new world plants found only in the Americas, but scattered from Patagonia northward to Canada in drier locations, they have evolved in a great number of forms, from tiny to huge. -- source link
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