WEBVTT - The Saguaro, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.640 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.800 And it is cactus Time here on the podcast. We're 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.120 going to be talking about what is I think arguably 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.360 the most iconic species of cactus. Joe and I were 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.920 actually having a conversation though off mic, trying to decide 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.480 exactly how we are going to agree to pronounce this cactus. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.760 We are talking about the sowarro cactus, but there are 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.239 different versions of the pronunciation floating around out there, and 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.120 I do want to apologize to my Arizona family for 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.640 not one hundred percent remembering how they were pronouncing it. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.440 But I feel like I've heard it a number of 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.120 different ways in different places. 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.560 So I was like watching interviews with researchers who work 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.400 on this type of cactus, and what I was hearing 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.319 most often then was so worrow. But then we look 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.280 it up and the dictionary says, well, you can either 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.760 do saguaro or sowara, and so there I'm just kind 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.880 of lost. So we're going with sowarrow because I don't know, 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:18.640 it seems like we're splitting the difference. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.080 Yeah, but our apologies if we are doing it wrong here. Certainly, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:25.880 if any of you out there have thoughts about how 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.039 it should be pronounced, do right in and we can 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.360 carry on from there. This is probably gonna be, I think, 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.200 a two parter, and this is going to be part one, 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.560 so it's entirely possible our pronunciation will shift between part 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:38.480 one and part two depending on feedback. We'll see how 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:38.880 it goes. 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.600 Or maybe we should just use the scientific name the 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.480 whole time, because I think you've got a whole story 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:44.040 on that, right. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.480 Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the scientific classification 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.640 for the suarrow. This is something I've been going out 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.280 to Arizona for years and seeing these things, and I've 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.920 always been impressed by them. But I think I should 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.080 certainly have read the scientist name before, but I've just 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.760 kind of let it pass through me, I guess, without 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.720 really thinking about it. And it wasn't until researching this 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.600 episode that I was like, huh, it's called Carnegia, Gigantia 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:17.919 and Carnegia. Yeah, that's that's an interesting name for this 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.400 particular Because to be clear, we'll go ahead and get 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.600 into a little bit about it. We're talking about a 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.800 cactus that grows in the Sonoran Desert, and it's it's 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.560 probably the most defining example of the flora there the 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.160 Sonoran Desert. To remind everyone, I think we discussed it 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.480 briefly in one of our previous desert episodes, the Carshner 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.959 Caverns episode. Actually, actually this is a desert that dips 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.080 more or less straight down from the southern limits of 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:50.359 the higher elevation Mojave Great Basin and Colorado Plateau Deserts 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.560 and dives down around the Gulf of California on both sides. So, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.359 all told, the desert ecosystem here covers parts of the 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:04.160 northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, Baja California, Baja California, sir 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.440 and then also parts of the southwestern US states of 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.240 Arizona and California. 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:14.720 Yeah. So, actually, the geographic range of the Souarro cactus 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.280 is more limited than you might guess based on the 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.760 way it's used in say, movies and TV shows, where 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.520 if you watch westerns, you know, Western shows set in 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.760 the American West, you could be forgiven for thinking that 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.440 the suaro is basically everywhere west of the Mississippi. I mean, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.520 it's just like it's in all of the Westerns, whether 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.680 they're said in Texas or Wyoming or Nevada or you know, wherever. 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.080 It's just like, Okay, we're somewhere. It's it's somewhere dry. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.080 We're somewhere out to the west, and we've got this cactus. 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.720 The arms are pointing up, and that's how you know 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:52.280 where we are. 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.920 Yeah, and where in reality, it's not even all of 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.640 the Sonoran Desert. Really only slight extensions of the range 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.560 goes in California. Nothing on the Baja Peninsula, I believe, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.320 mostly concentrated in a slice of territory that extends from 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:15.160 somewhat northwest of Phoenix in South just south below Guimus 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.560 in Mexico. So again, not even the whole Sonoran Desert, 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.400 but a sizable amount. But yeah, if you're watching Westerns, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.040 and if you're watching old cartoons set and not even 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.440 old cartoons like in cartoons in general, or playing video 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.839 games that have a setting with the desert, you're gonna 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:37.000 you're gonna probably see depictions of the Suaro everywhere, even 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.800 in video like in Super Mario games in front of 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.560 the pyramids presumably of Egypt, though I guess it's some 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.680 sort of Super Mario world. But yeah, it would make 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:48.640 you think, oh, well, these things are just everywhere. But no, 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.599 it's even just a slim part of North America where 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:54.240 you'll find it. 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.760 I've actually got a note about suarrow in video games 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:58.599 to get to in a few minutes. Oh, I'm excited, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:04:59.440 we'll get there. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.080 Oh yeah, again, this is like the poster child of 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:07.359 you know, realistically of Sonoran desert cacti, but then also 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.120 just the most icon iconic cactus period. You know, I 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.800 was I was in a yoga class earlier today, and 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.280 we're always doing a pose with our arms called cactus pose. 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.080 This is where your arms go up like this. I 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.480 guess it's kind of like a Some might say it's 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.640 more like a football goal sort of a scenario, but 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.800 generally refer to as cactus pose. And uh and I 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:32.920 didn't even think about it until today. You know, I've 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.200 been reading about about the Sorrow all week, and I'm like, oh, yeah, 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.279 it's a soorrow post basically, like that is what that is? 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.960 How iconic this particular species of cactus is. 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.800 Right, because cactus pose, you could just be a column, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.279 so it's great, or it could be like you do 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.279 a kind of twister tangle thing because you're a prickly 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:51.200 pear or something. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.560 Yeah, or you're like a ural cactus, like get down 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.880 and just make a ball. Yeah, it's like be more 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:56.919 specific yogis. 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.000 Yeah, it's like saying animal pose. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:05.680 Yeahs. But this also brings up another thing about the 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.720 suaro that's so iconic is that it lends itself very 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:15.560 easily to our anthropomorphizing it. You know, because they're tall, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.200 they have a like, I don't want to overstate it, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.520 like it's not like these things universally look like people, 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.760 and they are, you know, and they're often taller than people. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:30.400 They don't always have the two arms, but they're close enough. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.479 And granted, you know, things don't have to be very 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.960 close for them for us to answerpromorphize them. But yeah, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.280 we see them and we think of some sort of 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.039 a towering human form, sometimes with limbs reaching towards the sky. 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.600 I remember drawing this cacti all the time when I 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.760 was a kid. I think in part because I liked 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.279 drawing desert scenes and they were sort of characteristic flora 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.080 of the desert. I you know, I wasn't making geographic 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.000 distinctions so I'm sure if I was trying to draw 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.520 the pyramids, I would draw it, you know, suaro cactus. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.360 But also because of what you're talking about, because they 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:12.040 have that anthropomorphic quality, you could put sunglasses and a 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.040 hat on them, and I certainly did, but I would 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.240 go a step beyond and say, actually, they're not just anthropomorphic, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:25.680 they're friendly. They're a certain type of anthropomorphic because of 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.360 the posture of the arms. Now, as you say correctly, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.280 it's not just that they always have a central column 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.240 in two arms, but sometimes in nature they do. Sometimes 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.800 they got weirder arrangements, but you really do see that 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.800 two arm human arrangement out there in the world sometimes, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.880 and because of the posture of the arms, they appear 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.120 to be either saying hello with one arm raised above 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.320 the other, or cheering with both arms raised, or maybe 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.080 doing the you know, the field goal like you were 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:55.360 saying the football field goal. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.520 I guess it's also cornholio arms, right, that's right, Beavis, Yeah, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.920 I need to But yeah, either way, it is a 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:04.520 positive kind of posture. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.400 It suggests a friendliness. Whether you're saying hello or cheering, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.440 that's a that's positive emotion in the posture. So I 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:14.520 don't know. It's it's not the only thing in nature 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.280 that looks like a human standing up, but it's kind 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.800 of cheery in the way that it resembles a human. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.320 Yeah, and I mean there are a number of things 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.360 also playing into this. For the vast majority of cases, 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.640 they are not harmful to people. You know they are. 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.959 There is a gentle giant sense to them. And they 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:38.439 are pretty much the tallest natural organisms within their ecosystem, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.320 and so they really stand out, you know, they are. 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.000 They are the giants of their ecosystem, of the snorin desert. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.000 I wanted a minute ago, you were talking about their 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.920 use as as like sprites or decoration in video games, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.400 sometimes just in the background. But I was remembering this also, 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.679 not think you mentioned Super Mario World. I don't particularly 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.600 remember that, But I have a more obscure video game memory, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.520 which is of a game called Bunks Adventure for the 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.800 Turbographics sixteen. I was playing a little off the beaten path, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.679 and I was a kid. There were some This is 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.360 a game where you play as sounds weird to describe. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.600 I think you are a baby caveman who fights little 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.480 dinosaurs and you know, infected mammals and stuff by headbutting it. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.959 Your head is your weapons, so you head butt things 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.120 and you can, you know, so you run around these 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.240 prehistoric landscapes full of dinosaurs. You know, let's put aside 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.760 the well actually of you know, dinosaurs and humans living 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.200 at the same time. But you're battling dinosaurs by headbutting them. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.880 And one of the levels takes place in the desert, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.280 and there are indeed these cactus enemies and they're clearly 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.839 siguaro modeled because they they've got arms like this, or 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.280 sometimes they flip the arms one up and one down, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.280 but you know they're they're doing the bent arms like that, 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:55.400 and they've got the central column. And they also have 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.080 zany faces with yellow eyes going like whoa, whoa, whoa, 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.920 and you know, going oh with their mouth. They're kind 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.760 of doing the they're kind of doing the YouTube thumbnail 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:09.480 face or it's like wow, uh and uh. I think 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.440 if you jumped on them they would they would poke you. 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.440 So that's what But this burned in my memory as 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.960 a child. I'm sure when I was drawing cacti, I 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:18.120 was drawing those things. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.920 Now they're not wearing sunglasses, but there does appear to 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.360 be a deret actyl that is wearing sunglasses here? Is 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:25.800 that true? 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.680 Yeah, that's right, Okay, I don't remember. I think that's 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.679 just another thing to headbutt. Yeah, when when all you've 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.000 got is ahead, the world looks like a nail. 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:37.840 All right, So let's come back to this name. That 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.520 is a scientific name for the war the suaro cactus 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:47.640 Carnegia gigantia. All right, So gigantia makes sense, you know, giant. 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.400 Clearly this is a big cactus. But where do we 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.760 get carnegia? Uh, some of you might be wondering, Hey, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.120 is this cactus by any chance named after Andrew Carnegie? 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.200 The sky is bored American steel industrialist of the late 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.200 Gilded Age and early Progressive Age. 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:05.680 That's what I was wondering. 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.560 Yes, and it is absolutely the case. It is absolutely 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.120 named after him. 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:12.840 And did he invent this cactus? 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.280 No? No, But the story is actually really interesting and 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.280 ended up sort of getting like two versions of the 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.120 story of the same story here. So initially I was 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:27.120 looking at this was an article by the New York 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.080 Botanical Garden. It's titled This is from twenty twenty, titled 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.400 the Suaro Cactus emblematic plant of the American West and 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.839 the New York Botanical Garden. This was by Barbara M. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:44.160 Years and this is just a little history, you know, 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:49.000 brief history of the cactus and its Western classification. And 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.720 so I'm gonna I'm gonna roll through some of this here. 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:57.439 So the cactus is described in the West, apparently first 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.840 by US Mexico Boundary survey bytanist and explorer Charles Perry 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.760 between eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty three, though he 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.400 did not bring a specimen back with him, but he 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.720 brings back word and writings about them. Okay, Then Cacti 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.480 botanist George Engelman expands on Perry's work and names the 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:24.360 new cactus serious gigantius. And I want to reference here 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.520 that there's another My main book that I turned to 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.120 research for this episode is The Soarro Cactus, a Natural 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.319 History from the University of Arizona Press by David Yetman, 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:42.240 Alberto Broquz, Kevin Holteen, and Michael Sanderson. An excellent book 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.040 that I highly recommend. And so I'm also going to 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.160 have some additional thoughts from them. But they include in 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.920 their book one of the images that Englman created of 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.440 this specimen of cactus, and it is it is pretty 0:12:55.440 --> 0:13:00.400 amazing because the scale of the suaro is bonkers. They're 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.720 depicting a cactus significantly larger and taller than any known specimen, 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.560 and the authors of the book point out that the 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.640 picture is also quote a tad romantic. 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.400 It's funny because from this illustration, I do get the 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.840 real sense of it. Like if you've never seen a 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.040 suarro before and you'd only seen this picture and then 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.840 you came across one, you could probably recognize it. You 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:23.559 may like, oh, that's what I saw on the picture 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.440 in this book. At the same time, yeah, it does 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.439 seem a little oh, it feels a little beyond real. 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.320 It feels a little fantasy, like an illustration from an 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.120 alien planet. And it's got I don't know, something about 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.880 the angles are a little too regular here, like it 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.680 actually has kind of right angles in all the arms 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.440 and the arrangement. Just feel something's a little off. 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.000 Yeah, yeah, I mean besides the size, Yeah, yeah, I 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.920 mean he is I think leaning into the majesty of 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.360 the suaro here and attempting to capture it and succeeding 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.680 in capturing that while also kind of fudging the scale 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.360 of everything, and to your point, like the desert seeming 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.800 like an alien world, I mean, it does, you know, 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.559 And then that is the impression it leaves on. One 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.280 I toured while I was in Arizona, toured a Frank 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.600 Loyd Wright's house out there, and one of the things 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.560 they said was that that right would describe the surrounding 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.440 desert landscape as being like the bottom of the ocean, 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:25.720 and then looking out on it, he felt like he 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.360 was at the bottom of the sea. And so, you know, 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.520 those kinds of observations I think are valid in common. 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.240 That's kind of funny because I was thinking of this 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.600 illustration of the Suarro as being like a human made 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.040 antenna of some sort. So if it's the bottom of 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.640 the ocean, it's kind of the eltannan antenna out there 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.920 in the desert, which in reality was not an antenna 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:50.040 but was a sponge absolutely you know, wildlife. So yeah, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.760 that is interesting, though I feel like we want to 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.360 be careful at the same time that we don't sell 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.480 short how giant these things can get, Like this picture 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.720 might be bit exaggerated, but these things can in their maturity, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.640 can become absolutely huge. They grow to like seventy feet 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:07.200 or something. 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.360 Yeah, yeah, a few numbers on that. So we're talking 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:15.120 occasional heights of twelve meters or forty feet, and fifteen 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.960 meters or fifty foot specimens are seen from time to time, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.360 and then the record this, according to that University of 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.480 Arizona book, was a twenty three meter or seventy eight 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:31.080 foot sorrow found near Cave Creek, Arizona, that was sadly 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:32.880 toppled by winds in nineteen eighty six. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.720 Okay, so above seventy feet is not impossible, but is exceptional. 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.440 But it would not be unusual to get mature cacti 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.040 of the species that are like fifty feet right. 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.120 The ones in this image, though, I'm thinking, are like 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.920 one hundred and twenty feet. Okay, yeah, if I'm sort 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.960 of like stacking my people correctly, because the image shows 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.800 some little humans in the foreground here. Yeah, all right, 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:03.240 So pictures of the cactus are making their way back 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.280 to New York, and this is the point where, according 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.880 to that New York Botanical Garden article, enters New York 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:16.480 Botanical Garden founder Nathaniel Britton and fellow botanist Joseph N. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.360 Rose and they decide at some point in this that, Okay, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.040 this cactus really needs its own genus, and they decide 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.920 to name it after Andrew Carnegie and write to him 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.480 in nineteen oh two to ask his permission to do so, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:36.200 and that article of the New York Botanical Garden. I 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.800 do really love the response, I assume via telegram that 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.480 comes from Carnegie's secretary informing them that mister Carnegie quote 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:45.840 asked me to say that he is greatly honored by 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.960 the proposal and will do his best to live up 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:49.680 to it. 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.920 Can I be as grand as a cactus right now? 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.160 At this point, you may have a number of thoughts 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.200 about on this. You know, you might well find it 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.800 horrid to imagine that this long time din of the 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.600 desert that humans had known about for millennia should be 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.640 named after a New York City industrialist, robber baron, if 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.159 you will. And I'm not saying that that judgment is 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:16.159 completely invalid. But on the other hand, Carnegie became a 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.680 devoted philanthropist late in life, and funds from his fortune 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:25.160 helped establish for starters the Desert Botanical Laboratory, founded near Tucson, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.800 and I believe nineteen oh three in addition to various 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:33.719 other philanthropic venturers championing things like world peace, education, scientific research. So, 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.960 in short, if you're looking at all the various monopoly 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.159 maned tycoons of the day, Andrew Carnegie is arguably not 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.159 the worst by any stretch of the imagination. 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.400 I haven't done enough reading comment confidently on that, but 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.680 it's true. My general impression is, yeah, that he's more 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.800 invested in philanthropy than some of the others of his time, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:57.680 and certainly than some of our time. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.240 Yeah. Yeah, But you still might say, well, does he 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.200 deserve to have a cactus named after him? Maybe not. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.600 And the interesting thing is, I don't think even Carnegie 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.080 thought that a cactus should be named after him, Because 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.600 when I was well, when I finally got to the 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:14.960 part of the University of Arizona book that I referenced 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.760 earlier where they talk about the Carnegie situation, the way 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.840 they tell it is that the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Yes, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.919 acquired much of its early funding from Carnegie, and they 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.040 invited him out to visit the site, and during his visit, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.159 they showed him some suarros and told him that the 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.399 plant had been named for him in like a blatant 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.399 attempt to flatter him, and he did not take it 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.000 well that he saw this as just naked pandering and 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.679 was like, you know, how, why are you renaming this 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.200 Like surely this species was already known to humans. It's 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.919 too you know, outrageous and obvious a specimen that you know. 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.480 He did not like this. He did continue to fund 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.520 the Desert the Desert Laboratory, however, and I'm assuming if 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.560 we're to sort of piece these two stories is together. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.080 His secretary at least responds with a nice note later on, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.960 but it sounds like in the moment he maybe did 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.200 not see this as is a great thing that the 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.320 skeptics was being named after him, and then did not 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.479 see why it was necessary and again saw it as 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:15.680 just naked pandering. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.159 Well, I can appreciate not wanting to be pandered to 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.240 in that way, And in my case, if somebody tried 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:22.920 to name a species after me, I think I would 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:23.639 be embarrassed. 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.360 You heard it here, folks. If you're out there listening 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.880 and you're thinking about naming a species after Joe McCormick, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:31.040 do not do it. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.920 That's going to happen. You never know I mean, I'm 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.920 not gonna be mad, but I'm not asking for that. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:39.280 What have you discovered though? 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.880 I don't know I'd find that unlikely, but who knows. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:46.879 Where were we though? But oh wait, so but doesn't 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.679 it retain the Carnegie name? So it is an issue 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.880 like he didn't love this, but they was like, well, 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:53.600 we already had the place cards printed out. 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:59.359 Yeah, it's stuck like that is still the Suaro's scientific classification. 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.679 You can anywhere you read about it. So I had 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.440 read about it in the past, clearly when I'd gone 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.639 to various like desert botanical gardens and so forth, but 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.480 I hadn't really noticed it and questioned the name until 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:11.400 this research. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.600 Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe it blends enough in with 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:21.119 some other biological sounding words like carnegiea carnotaurus kind of 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:26.240 or is it like carnos something sounds like meat or flesh. 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.240 I don't know, yeah, Or it's one of those things 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:30.600 where at first I was like is it named after Carnegie? 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:32.439 And then like, well, maybe it's not named after the 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.520 most obvious Carnegie out there. I'm just jumped to conclusions. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:47.919 But no, the conclusion would be correct, all right, So 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.160 we already talked about just how tall this particular cactus 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.560 can get. It is indeed a desert giant, the tallest 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.760 and largest cactus in the United States, and the tallest 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.480 deser planned in the US as well. If you dip 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:07.000 down into the territory of Mexico proper, there is a 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:12.960 variety of related cactus called the Mexican giant cardone or 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:18.240 the elephant cactus, and that one can grow larger. Though. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.320 This is one of those things where it's like, what 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:23.919 is the tallest cactus now versus what is the tallest 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.119 cactus ever? You can kind of go back and forth 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:31.480 on that. But the authors of the University of Arizona 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:37.760 book note that the exceptional specimen from Cave Creek, Arizona, 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.480 the one that was like seventy eight feet tall, This 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.360 would have dwarfed the oldest known living cactus species today. 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.000 Presumably they're referring to an elephant cactus. Yeah, but still, 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.879 anyway you slice it, really tall cactus. They're the tallest 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.120 plants in there in their ecosystem, and yeah, they really 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:58.760 stand out. They define their part of the Sonoran Desert. 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.720 And I remember being really struck by them the first 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.399 time that I visited Arizona because when you leave the 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.359 airport in Phoenix, they're basically there. Like, they don't just 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.040 dot the landscape outside of the city. You will find 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.159 them throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:19.400 Yeah, speaking to their size and interactions with humans, maybe 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.400 this is a good place to mention. You know, there 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:27.600 is at least one famous souaro cactus related death which 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.160 I was reading about. I got there actually by way 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:35.119 of a song. So there is a song by so 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.080