Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: And it is cactus Time here on the podcast. We're
Speaker 2: going to be talking about what is I think arguably
Speaker 2: the most iconic species of cactus. Joe and I were
Speaker 2: actually having a conversation though off mic, trying to decide
Speaker 2: exactly how we are going to agree to pronounce this cactus.
Speaker 2: We are talking about the sowarro cactus, but there are
Speaker 2: different versions of the pronunciation floating around out there, and
Speaker 2: I do want to apologize to my Arizona family for
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent remembering how they were pronouncing it.
Speaker 2: But I feel like I've heard it a number of
Speaker 2: different ways in different places.
Speaker 3: So I was like watching interviews with researchers who work
Speaker 3: on this type of cactus, and what I was hearing
Speaker 3: most often then was so worrow. But then we look
Speaker 3: it up and the dictionary says, well, you can either
Speaker 3: do saguaro or sowara, and so there I'm just kind
Speaker 3: of lost. So we're going with sowarrow because I don't know,
Speaker 3: it seems like we're splitting the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but our apologies if we are doing it wrong here. Certainly,
Speaker 2: if any of you out there have thoughts about how
Speaker 2: it should be pronounced, do right in and we can
Speaker 2: carry on from there. This is probably gonna be, I think,
Speaker 2: a two parter, and this is going to be part one,
Speaker 2: so it's entirely possible our pronunciation will shift between part
Speaker 2: one and part two depending on feedback. We'll see how
Speaker 2: it goes.
Speaker 3: Or maybe we should just use the scientific name the
Speaker 3: whole time, because I think you've got a whole story
Speaker 3: on that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the scientific classification
Speaker 2: for the suarrow. This is something I've been going out
Speaker 2: to Arizona for years and seeing these things, and I've
Speaker 2: always been impressed by them. But I think I should
Speaker 2: certainly have read the scientist name before, but I've just
Speaker 2: kind of let it pass through me, I guess, without
Speaker 2: really thinking about it. And it wasn't until researching this
Speaker 2: episode that I was like, huh, it's called Carnegia, Gigantia
Speaker 2: and Carnegia. Yeah, that's that's an interesting name for this
Speaker 2: particular Because to be clear, we'll go ahead and get
Speaker 2: into a little bit about it. We're talking about a
Speaker 2: cactus that grows in the Sonoran Desert, and it's it's
Speaker 2: probably the most defining example of the flora there the
Speaker 2: Sonoran Desert. To remind everyone, I think we discussed it
Speaker 2: briefly in one of our previous desert episodes, the Carshner
Speaker 2: Caverns episode. Actually, actually this is a desert that dips
Speaker 2: more or less straight down from the southern limits of
Speaker 2: the higher elevation Mojave Great Basin and Colorado Plateau Deserts
Speaker 2: and dives down around the Gulf of California on both sides. So,
Speaker 2: all told, the desert ecosystem here covers parts of the
Speaker 2: northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, Baja California, Baja California, sir
Speaker 2: and then also parts of the southwestern US states of
Speaker 2: Arizona and California.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, actually, the geographic range of the Souarro cactus
Speaker 3: is more limited than you might guess based on the
Speaker 3: way it's used in say, movies and TV shows, where
Speaker 3: if you watch westerns, you know, Western shows set in
Speaker 3: the American West, you could be forgiven for thinking that
Speaker 3: the suaro is basically everywhere west of the Mississippi. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just like it's in all of the Westerns, whether
Speaker 3: they're said in Texas or Wyoming or Nevada or you know, wherever.
Speaker 3: It's just like, Okay, we're somewhere. It's it's somewhere dry.
Speaker 3: We're somewhere out to the west, and we've got this cactus.
Speaker 3: The arms are pointing up, and that's how you know
Speaker 3: where we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and where in reality, it's not even all of
Speaker 2: the Sonoran Desert. Really only slight extensions of the range
Speaker 2: goes in California. Nothing on the Baja Peninsula, I believe,
Speaker 2: mostly concentrated in a slice of territory that extends from
Speaker 2: somewhat northwest of Phoenix in South just south below Guimus
Speaker 2: in Mexico. So again, not even the whole Sonoran Desert,
Speaker 2: but a sizable amount. But yeah, if you're watching Westerns,
Speaker 2: and if you're watching old cartoons set and not even
Speaker 2: old cartoons like in cartoons in general, or playing video
Speaker 2: games that have a setting with the desert, you're gonna
Speaker 2: you're gonna probably see depictions of the Suaro everywhere, even
Speaker 2: in video like in Super Mario games in front of
Speaker 2: the pyramids presumably of Egypt, though I guess it's some
Speaker 2: sort of Super Mario world. But yeah, it would make
Speaker 2: you think, oh, well, these things are just everywhere. But no,
Speaker 2: it's even just a slim part of North America where
Speaker 2: you'll find it.
Speaker 3: I've actually got a note about suarrow in video games
Speaker 3: to get to in a few minutes. Oh, I'm excited,
Speaker 3: we'll get there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, again, this is like the poster child of
Speaker 2: you know, realistically of Sonoran desert cacti, but then also
Speaker 2: just the most icon iconic cactus period. You know, I
Speaker 2: was I was in a yoga class earlier today, and
Speaker 2: we're always doing a pose with our arms called cactus pose.
Speaker 2: This is where your arms go up like this. I
Speaker 2: guess it's kind of like a Some might say it's
Speaker 2: more like a football goal sort of a scenario, but
Speaker 2: generally refer to as cactus pose. And uh and I
Speaker 2: didn't even think about it until today. You know, I've
Speaker 2: been reading about about the Sorrow all week, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a soorrow post basically, like that is what that is?
Speaker 2: How iconic this particular species of cactus is.
Speaker 3: Right, because cactus pose, you could just be a column,
Speaker 3: so it's great, or it could be like you do
Speaker 3: a kind of twister tangle thing because you're a prickly
Speaker 3: pear or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you're like a ural cactus, like get down
Speaker 2: and just make a ball. Yeah, it's like be more
Speaker 2: specific yogis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like saying animal pose.
Speaker 2: Yeahs. But this also brings up another thing about the
Speaker 2: suaro that's so iconic is that it lends itself very
Speaker 2: easily to our anthropomorphizing it. You know, because they're tall,
Speaker 2: they have a like, I don't want to overstate it,
Speaker 2: like it's not like these things universally look like people,
Speaker 2: and they are, you know, and they're often taller than people.
Speaker 2: They don't always have the two arms, but they're close enough.
Speaker 2: And granted, you know, things don't have to be very
Speaker 2: close for them for us to answerpromorphize them. But yeah,
Speaker 2: we see them and we think of some sort of
Speaker 2: a towering human form, sometimes with limbs reaching towards the sky.
Speaker 3: I remember drawing this cacti all the time when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. I think in part because I liked
Speaker 3: drawing desert scenes and they were sort of characteristic flora
Speaker 3: of the desert. I you know, I wasn't making geographic
Speaker 3: distinctions so I'm sure if I was trying to draw
Speaker 3: the pyramids, I would draw it, you know, suaro cactus.
Speaker 3: But also because of what you're talking about, because they
Speaker 3: have that anthropomorphic quality, you could put sunglasses and a
Speaker 3: hat on them, and I certainly did, but I would
Speaker 3: go a step beyond and say, actually, they're not just anthropomorphic,
Speaker 3: they're friendly. They're a certain type of anthropomorphic because of
Speaker 3: the posture of the arms. Now, as you say correctly,
Speaker 3: it's not just that they always have a central column
Speaker 3: in two arms, but sometimes in nature they do. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they got weirder arrangements, but you really do see that
Speaker 3: two arm human arrangement out there in the world sometimes,
Speaker 3: and because of the posture of the arms, they appear
Speaker 3: to be either saying hello with one arm raised above
Speaker 3: the other, or cheering with both arms raised, or maybe
Speaker 3: doing the you know, the field goal like you were
Speaker 3: saying the football field goal.
Speaker 2: I guess it's also cornholio arms, right, that's right, Beavis, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I need to But yeah, either way, it is a
Speaker 2: positive kind of posture.
Speaker 3: It suggests a friendliness. Whether you're saying hello or cheering,
Speaker 3: that's a that's positive emotion in the posture. So I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's it's not the only thing in nature
Speaker 3: that looks like a human standing up, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of cheery in the way that it resembles a human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean there are a number of things
Speaker 2: also playing into this. For the vast majority of cases,
Speaker 2: they are not harmful to people. You know they are.
Speaker 2: There is a gentle giant sense to them. And they
Speaker 2: are pretty much the tallest natural organisms within their ecosystem,
Speaker 2: and so they really stand out, you know, they are.
Speaker 2: They are the giants of their ecosystem, of the snorin desert.
Speaker 3: I wanted a minute ago, you were talking about their
Speaker 3: use as as like sprites or decoration in video games,
Speaker 3: sometimes just in the background. But I was remembering this also,
Speaker 3: not think you mentioned Super Mario World. I don't particularly
Speaker 3: remember that, But I have a more obscure video game memory,
Speaker 3: which is of a game called Bunks Adventure for the
Speaker 3: Turbographics sixteen. I was playing a little off the beaten path,
Speaker 3: and I was a kid. There were some This is
Speaker 3: a game where you play as sounds weird to describe.
Speaker 3: I think you are a baby caveman who fights little
Speaker 3: dinosaurs and you know, infected mammals and stuff by headbutting it.
Speaker 3: Your head is your weapons, so you head butt things
Speaker 3: and you can, you know, so you run around these
Speaker 3: prehistoric landscapes full of dinosaurs. You know, let's put aside
Speaker 3: the well actually of you know, dinosaurs and humans living
Speaker 3: at the same time. But you're battling dinosaurs by headbutting them.
Speaker 3: And one of the levels takes place in the desert,
Speaker 3: and there are indeed these cactus enemies and they're clearly
Speaker 3: siguaro modeled because they they've got arms like this, or
Speaker 3: sometimes they flip the arms one up and one down,
Speaker 3: but you know they're they're doing the bent arms like that,
Speaker 3: and they've got the central column. And they also have
Speaker 3: zany faces with yellow eyes going like whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 3: and you know, going oh with their mouth. They're kind
Speaker 3: of doing the they're kind of doing the YouTube thumbnail
Speaker 3: face or it's like wow, uh and uh. I think
Speaker 3: if you jumped on them they would they would poke you.
Speaker 3: So that's what But this burned in my memory as
Speaker 3: a child. I'm sure when I was drawing cacti, I
Speaker 3: was drawing those things.
Speaker 2: Now they're not wearing sunglasses, but there does appear to
Speaker 2: be a deret actyl that is wearing sunglasses here? Is
Speaker 2: that true?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, Okay, I don't remember. I think that's
Speaker 3: just another thing to headbutt. Yeah, when when all you've
Speaker 3: got is ahead, the world looks like a nail.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's come back to this name. That
Speaker 2: is a scientific name for the war the suaro cactus
Speaker 2: Carnegia gigantia. All right, So gigantia makes sense, you know, giant.
Speaker 2: Clearly this is a big cactus. But where do we
Speaker 2: get carnegia? Uh, some of you might be wondering, Hey,
Speaker 2: is this cactus by any chance named after Andrew Carnegie?
Speaker 2: The sky is bored American steel industrialist of the late
Speaker 2: Gilded Age and early Progressive Age.
Speaker 3: That's what I was wondering.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it is absolutely the case. It is absolutely
Speaker 2: named after him.
Speaker 3: And did he invent this cactus?
Speaker 2: No? No, But the story is actually really interesting and
Speaker 2: ended up sort of getting like two versions of the
Speaker 2: story of the same story here. So initially I was
Speaker 2: looking at this was an article by the New York
Speaker 2: Botanical Garden. It's titled This is from twenty twenty, titled
Speaker 2: the Suaro Cactus emblematic plant of the American West and
Speaker 2: the New York Botanical Garden. This was by Barbara M.
Speaker 2: Years and this is just a little history, you know,
Speaker 2: brief history of the cactus and its Western classification. And
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna I'm gonna roll through some of this here.
Speaker 2: So the cactus is described in the West, apparently first
Speaker 2: by US Mexico Boundary survey bytanist and explorer Charles Perry
Speaker 2: between eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty three, though he
Speaker 2: did not bring a specimen back with him, but he
Speaker 2: brings back word and writings about them. Okay, Then Cacti
Speaker 2: botanist George Engelman expands on Perry's work and names the
Speaker 2: new cactus serious gigantius. And I want to reference here
Speaker 2: that there's another My main book that I turned to
Speaker 2: research for this episode is The Soarro Cactus, a Natural
Speaker 2: History from the University of Arizona Press by David Yetman,
Speaker 2: Alberto Broquz, Kevin Holteen, and Michael Sanderson. An excellent book
Speaker 2: that I highly recommend. And so I'm also going to
Speaker 2: have some additional thoughts from them. But they include in
Speaker 2: their book one of the images that Englman created of
Speaker 2: this specimen of cactus, and it is it is pretty
Speaker 2: amazing because the scale of the suaro is bonkers. They're
Speaker 2: depicting a cactus significantly larger and taller than any known specimen,
Speaker 2: and the authors of the book point out that the
Speaker 2: picture is also quote a tad romantic.
Speaker 3: It's funny because from this illustration, I do get the
Speaker 3: real sense of it. Like if you've never seen a
Speaker 3: suarro before and you'd only seen this picture and then
Speaker 3: you came across one, you could probably recognize it. You
Speaker 3: may like, oh, that's what I saw on the picture
Speaker 3: in this book. At the same time, yeah, it does
Speaker 3: seem a little oh, it feels a little beyond real.
Speaker 3: It feels a little fantasy, like an illustration from an
Speaker 3: alien planet. And it's got I don't know, something about
Speaker 3: the angles are a little too regular here, like it
Speaker 3: actually has kind of right angles in all the arms
Speaker 3: and the arrangement. Just feel something's a little off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean besides the size, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean he is I think leaning into the majesty of
Speaker 2: the suaro here and attempting to capture it and succeeding
Speaker 2: in capturing that while also kind of fudging the scale
Speaker 2: of everything, and to your point, like the desert seeming
Speaker 2: like an alien world, I mean, it does, you know,
Speaker 2: And then that is the impression it leaves on. One
Speaker 2: I toured while I was in Arizona, toured a Frank
Speaker 2: Loyd Wright's house out there, and one of the things
Speaker 2: they said was that that right would describe the surrounding
Speaker 2: desert landscape as being like the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 2: and then looking out on it, he felt like he
Speaker 2: was at the bottom of the sea. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: those kinds of observations I think are valid in common.
Speaker 3: That's kind of funny because I was thinking of this
Speaker 3: illustration of the Suarro as being like a human made
Speaker 3: antenna of some sort. So if it's the bottom of
Speaker 3: the ocean, it's kind of the eltannan antenna out there
Speaker 3: in the desert, which in reality was not an antenna
Speaker 3: but was a sponge absolutely you know, wildlife. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that is interesting, though I feel like we want to
Speaker 3: be careful at the same time that we don't sell
Speaker 3: short how giant these things can get, Like this picture
Speaker 3: might be bit exaggerated, but these things can in their maturity,
Speaker 3: can become absolutely huge. They grow to like seventy feet
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a few numbers on that. So we're talking
Speaker 2: occasional heights of twelve meters or forty feet, and fifteen
Speaker 2: meters or fifty foot specimens are seen from time to time,
Speaker 2: and then the record this, according to that University of
Speaker 2: Arizona book, was a twenty three meter or seventy eight
Speaker 2: foot sorrow found near Cave Creek, Arizona, that was sadly
Speaker 2: toppled by winds in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: Okay, so above seventy feet is not impossible, but is exceptional.
Speaker 3: But it would not be unusual to get mature cacti
Speaker 3: of the species that are like fifty feet right.
Speaker 2: The ones in this image, though, I'm thinking, are like
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty feet. Okay, yeah, if I'm sort
Speaker 2: of like stacking my people correctly, because the image shows
Speaker 2: some little humans in the foreground here. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: So pictures of the cactus are making their way back
Speaker 2: to New York, and this is the point where, according
Speaker 2: to that New York Botanical Garden article, enters New York
Speaker 2: Botanical Garden founder Nathaniel Britton and fellow botanist Joseph N.
Speaker 2: Rose and they decide at some point in this that, Okay,
Speaker 2: this cactus really needs its own genus, and they decide
Speaker 2: to name it after Andrew Carnegie and write to him
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh two to ask his permission to do so,
Speaker 2: and that article of the New York Botanical Garden. I
Speaker 2: do really love the response, I assume via telegram that
Speaker 2: comes from Carnegie's secretary informing them that mister Carnegie quote
Speaker 2: asked me to say that he is greatly honored by
Speaker 2: the proposal and will do his best to live up
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 3: Can I be as grand as a cactus right now?
Speaker 2: At this point, you may have a number of thoughts
Speaker 2: about on this. You know, you might well find it
Speaker 2: horrid to imagine that this long time din of the
Speaker 2: desert that humans had known about for millennia should be
Speaker 2: named after a New York City industrialist, robber baron, if
Speaker 2: you will. And I'm not saying that that judgment is
Speaker 2: completely invalid. But on the other hand, Carnegie became a
Speaker 2: devoted philanthropist late in life, and funds from his fortune
Speaker 2: helped establish for starters the Desert Botanical Laboratory, founded near Tucson,
Speaker 2: and I believe nineteen oh three in addition to various
Speaker 2: other philanthropic venturers championing things like world peace, education, scientific research. So,
Speaker 2: in short, if you're looking at all the various monopoly
Speaker 2: maned tycoons of the day, Andrew Carnegie is arguably not
Speaker 2: the worst by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 3: I haven't done enough reading comment confidently on that, but
Speaker 3: it's true. My general impression is, yeah, that he's more
Speaker 3: invested in philanthropy than some of the others of his time,
Speaker 3: and certainly than some of our time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But you still might say, well, does he
Speaker 2: deserve to have a cactus named after him? Maybe not.
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is, I don't think even Carnegie
Speaker 2: thought that a cactus should be named after him, Because
Speaker 2: when I was well, when I finally got to the
Speaker 2: part of the University of Arizona book that I referenced
Speaker 2: earlier where they talk about the Carnegie situation, the way
Speaker 2: they tell it is that the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Yes,
Speaker 2: acquired much of its early funding from Carnegie, and they
Speaker 2: invited him out to visit the site, and during his visit,
Speaker 2: they showed him some suarros and told him that the
Speaker 2: plant had been named for him in like a blatant
Speaker 2: attempt to flatter him, and he did not take it
Speaker 2: well that he saw this as just naked pandering and
Speaker 2: was like, you know, how, why are you renaming this
Speaker 2: Like surely this species was already known to humans. It's
Speaker 2: too you know, outrageous and obvious a specimen that you know.
Speaker 2: He did not like this. He did continue to fund
Speaker 2: the Desert the Desert Laboratory, however, and I'm assuming if
Speaker 2: we're to sort of piece these two stories is together.
Speaker 2: His secretary at least responds with a nice note later on,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like in the moment he maybe did
Speaker 2: not see this as is a great thing that the
Speaker 2: skeptics was being named after him, and then did not
Speaker 2: see why it was necessary and again saw it as
Speaker 2: just naked pandering.
Speaker 3: Well, I can appreciate not wanting to be pandered to
Speaker 3: in that way, And in my case, if somebody tried
Speaker 3: to name a species after me, I think I would
Speaker 3: be embarrassed.
Speaker 2: You heard it here, folks. If you're out there listening
Speaker 2: and you're thinking about naming a species after Joe McCormick,
Speaker 2: do not do it.
Speaker 3: That's going to happen. You never know I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna be mad, but I'm not asking for that.
Speaker 2: What have you discovered though?
Speaker 3: I don't know I'd find that unlikely, but who knows.
Speaker 3: Where were we though? But oh wait, so but doesn't
Speaker 3: it retain the Carnegie name? So it is an issue
Speaker 3: like he didn't love this, but they was like, well,
Speaker 3: we already had the place cards printed out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's stuck like that is still the Suaro's scientific classification.
Speaker 2: You can anywhere you read about it. So I had
Speaker 2: read about it in the past, clearly when I'd gone
Speaker 2: to various like desert botanical gardens and so forth, but
Speaker 2: I hadn't really noticed it and questioned the name until
Speaker 2: this research.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe it blends enough in with
Speaker 3: some other biological sounding words like carnegiea carnotaurus kind of
Speaker 3: or is it like carnos something sounds like meat or flesh.
Speaker 2: I don't know, yeah, Or it's one of those things
Speaker 2: where at first I was like is it named after Carnegie?
Speaker 2: And then like, well, maybe it's not named after the
Speaker 2: most obvious Carnegie out there. I'm just jumped to conclusions.
Speaker 2: But no, the conclusion would be correct, all right, So
Speaker 2: we already talked about just how tall this particular cactus
Speaker 2: can get. It is indeed a desert giant, the tallest
Speaker 2: and largest cactus in the United States, and the tallest
Speaker 2: deser planned in the US as well. If you dip
Speaker 2: down into the territory of Mexico proper, there is a
Speaker 2: variety of related cactus called the Mexican giant cardone or
Speaker 2: the elephant cactus, and that one can grow larger. Though.
Speaker 2: This is one of those things where it's like, what
Speaker 2: is the tallest cactus now versus what is the tallest
Speaker 2: cactus ever? You can kind of go back and forth
Speaker 2: on that. But the authors of the University of Arizona
Speaker 2: book note that the exceptional specimen from Cave Creek, Arizona,
Speaker 2: the one that was like seventy eight feet tall, This
Speaker 2: would have dwarfed the oldest known living cactus species today.
Speaker 2: Presumably they're referring to an elephant cactus. Yeah, but still,
Speaker 2: anyway you slice it, really tall cactus. They're the tallest
Speaker 2: plants in there in their ecosystem, and yeah, they really
Speaker 2: stand out. They define their part of the Sonoran Desert.
Speaker 2: And I remember being really struck by them the first
Speaker 2: time that I visited Arizona because when you leave the
Speaker 2: airport in Phoenix, they're basically there. Like, they don't just
Speaker 2: dot the landscape outside of the city. You will find
Speaker 2: them throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaking to their size and interactions with humans, maybe
Speaker 3: this is a good place to mention. You know, there
Speaker 3: is at least one famous souaro cactus related death which
Speaker 3: I was reading about. I got there actually by way
Speaker 3: of a song. So there is a song by so
Speaker 3: I've read somewhere about the song. I went and listened
Speaker 3: to the song. It's by a Texas band called the
Speaker 3: Austin Lounge Lizards, and it is a Western style ballad
Speaker 3: that I think is somewhat satirical because it is talking
Speaker 3: about this character sort of going out and suiting up
Speaker 3: for battle against a cactus. And so it's telling the
Speaker 3: true to life story of a guy named David Grundman
Speaker 3: who was crushed by a falling souarro after he shot
Speaker 3: it in. I guess it was the year nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 3: I think, because I was looking for a little more
Speaker 3: on this and I found a New York Times article
Speaker 3: from nineteen eighty two which says, quote last February twenty seven,
Speaker 3: year old David M. Grundman took to the desert near
Speaker 3: here with a shotgun and two rifles and began blasting
Speaker 3: away at a twenty three foot tall Souarro cactus. The cactus,
Speaker 3: mortally wounded by the gunfire, suddenly toppled over on mister Grundman,
Speaker 3: crushing him to death. From that, it does kind of
Speaker 3: sound like the whole thing fell over from the trunk,
Speaker 3: But based on other summaries of the story I was reading,
Speaker 3: it sounds more like one of the arms fell off
Speaker 3: and like it fell onto his car and killed him.
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure exactly which version of the story
Speaker 3: is correct there, but yet it is verified that it
Speaker 3: in some way this guy was killed by shooting at
Speaker 3: a cactus until it fell on him.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we do not take delight in human
Speaker 2: death here on stuff will blow your mind. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there is something about the story that maybe inspires morbid humor.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that it kind
Speaker 2: of reminds one of Don Quixote going up against the
Speaker 2: windmills or something, you know, And you know, it seems
Speaker 2: like a on the whole very avoidable death as long
Speaker 2: as you don't go out and start shooting at the
Speaker 2: basis of cacti that are not asking for it.
Speaker 3: It does raise questions, Yes, what did the cactus do
Speaker 3: to provoke this? It doesn't seem like anything could have
Speaker 3: could have been been justifiable. So yeah, so it seems
Speaker 3: not advisable to go shooting at cactus, especially if you're
Speaker 3: standing close to them. But yeah, not really at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, why do you need to shoot a cactus?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's part of this situation too, might
Speaker 2: be like a basic tendency to misunderstand not how big
Speaker 2: they are, but also just how heavy they are.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because you might assume they're they're kind of
Speaker 3: like soft and light or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like a like an inflatable from a used
Speaker 2: car dealership or something. But now these are stout. They
Speaker 2: can get quite heavy. They're like eighty percent water. I
Speaker 2: believe that's the percent. I will come back to it
Speaker 2: here in a bit, but yeah, these are these are
Speaker 2: these are hefty, hefty specimens. Now, before we talk more
Speaker 2: about the sorrow, I wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about cactuses in general, cactus origins and getting into why
Speaker 2: the cactus unlike other succulents are native to the Americus.
Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on this,
Speaker 2: but basically, here's the here's the quick and dirty version.
Speaker 2: So cactus origins in general date back to the mid
Speaker 2: Tertiary period, so roughly twenty three to forty million years
Speaker 2: ago we're talking about with this period, and it concerns
Speaker 2: a period when we had like a great drying out
Speaker 2: on a kind of harsh earth. This great drying out
Speaker 2: allowed the evolution of various life forms that could survive
Speaker 2: and or exploit dry, cooler temperatures and low rainfall. So
Speaker 2: the authors of that University of Arizona book right that
Speaker 2: this was a time during which the North American horses,
Speaker 2: large South American birds, giant crocs, and prehistoric whales did
Speaker 2: very well. And it's also when the oldest cactus species
Speaker 2: seem to have diverged around thirty five million years ago
Speaker 2: in South America, and this would have been long after
Speaker 2: the split from Africa, thus the American isolation of the cactus.
Speaker 2: So after these new this new type of plant life
Speaker 2: gains a foothold, cactuses continue to spread and evolve and
Speaker 2: fill new niches in response, to changing ecosystems, and eventually
Speaker 2: we reach the point where today we have between something
Speaker 2: like fourteen hundred and eighteen hundred and fifty cactus species
Speaker 2: across one hundred and twenty five genera. You'll find cactus.
Speaker 2: The numbers vary depending on who's doing accounting, but you'll
Speaker 2: find cactuses as far north as into Canada. But in
Speaker 2: general they grow small and fewer the farther north you
Speaker 2: go after a certain point. And as we'll come back to,
Speaker 2: part of this has to do with a cactus species
Speaker 2: ability to survive freezes. But you know, cactuses come in
Speaker 2: all forms. They fill various plant in inches, and they
Speaker 2: range from very small and shrub like things to huge
Speaker 2: treelike plants like the souarro. Again, these are the largest
Speaker 2: of the tree like cacti.
Speaker 3: Now, you mentioned that you know they have this sensitivity
Speaker 3: to climate factors, and that's not only true for cacti
Speaker 3: as a whole, but it is true even within a species.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, I don't want to over undercut
Speaker 3: you if you plan to talk about this later, but
Speaker 3: one thing I was reading about was that you find
Speaker 3: very different growth patterns for swaro itself depending on just
Speaker 3: like what side of a mountain it's on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, for instance, I'm to understand the aerials space
Speaker 2: different differently on on cacti than this suaros, depending on
Speaker 2: where they're growing. These are the little the little like
Speaker 2: nubs that the spines grow out of. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, speaking of spines, obviously cacti differ from plants
Speaker 2: and that they have these spines. These like when you
Speaker 2: draw a cactus as a child, what are you drawing
Speaker 2: on there? You're drawing the little spines, Like that's probably
Speaker 2: one of the most.
Speaker 3: Love drawing those.
Speaker 2: Fun.
Speaker 3: I would I would draw a cactus with like a marker,
Speaker 3: the green part with a marker and then get a
Speaker 3: little mechanical pencil and do all the spines.
Speaker 2: M hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah. These are evolutionarily derived from leaves, which
Speaker 2: like new shoots, flowers, and fruits on a cactus, they
Speaker 2: grow out of. These areoles, which the authors of the
Speaker 2: University of Arizona book describe as felty lumps on the cactus.
Speaker 2: And yeah, they're distributed in different ways in different species,
Speaker 2: and even within a single species, things can laid out
Speaker 2: a little bit differently. Except for a few primitive cactus species.
Speaker 2: Cactuses generally lack leaves, though some species like the Prickly pair,
Speaker 2: produce rudimentary leaves early in development. Leaves, though, are in
Speaker 2: general too costly and too much of a water loss
Speaker 2: for a cactus. There are also a few isolated cactus
Speaker 2: species that lack spines. Now with the soarro, the spines
Speaker 2: are white, up to five centimeters in length and space
Speaker 2: generally around three centimeters apart. The spines, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: produce rings as the plant grows and as it ages,
Speaker 2: which botanists can then date. And why do cactuses in
Speaker 2: general have spines? Well, well, I think we know the
Speaker 2: most obvious reason, and that is to punish those that
Speaker 2: would attempt to touch them, hug them, eat of them,
Speaker 2: and so forth, to provide protection right mainly against herbivores.
Speaker 2: But in addition to this, cactus spines boast various other
Speaker 2: purposes that are pretty fascinating. But also it may not
Speaker 2: seem as as obvious, you know, and of course all
Speaker 2: these different things can work together at the same time.
Speaker 2: But they can provide shade against sunburn for the for
Speaker 2: these plants in their desert environments, they can trap heat
Speaker 2: and help with freeze protection in colder climates. In some species,
Speaker 2: spines may also help in moisture harvesting. Like you read
Speaker 2: about these different cactuses that basically like drink the fog
Speaker 2: and so forth. Cactus fruits also tend to be spiny
Speaker 2: as well, protecting the fruits until they've reached the point
Speaker 2: where they can ripen. At least, so there are a
Speaker 2: number of different cactus fruits that as they ripen, the
Speaker 2: spines kind of become less operational, so that the fruit
Speaker 2: can then be eaten, the seeds can be spread, and
Speaker 2: so forth. And though of course in this you get
Speaker 2: into corresponding adaptations from all the organisms involved. You know,
Speaker 2: some animals have spine management adaptations or techniques. Let's see,
Speaker 2: on top of this, have cactus flowers in general, they
Speaker 2: tend to be very colorful and stand out to attract pollinators.
Speaker 2: I think we'll come back to some of that regarding
Speaker 2: the souarro. And then also we should know that cacti
Speaker 2: compensate for their lack of leaves by carrying out photosynthesis
Speaker 2: through the skin and outer stems.
Speaker 3: So this is why the stem itself of the cactus
Speaker 3: is often green then that's because that's where the photosynthesis
Speaker 3: is happening, is where the chlorophyll.
Speaker 2: Needs to be right right, and also where the water
Speaker 2: ends up being stored. So the authors of the University
Speaker 2: of Arizona book point out that during the driest parts
Speaker 2: of the year, the souaro's water it's excellent water conservation
Speaker 2: is very obvious because they'll remain very green while upland
Speaker 2: trees and shrubs basically become just brown and dried up
Speaker 2: in appearance, even though they're still alive. They just they
Speaker 2: basically look dead, but the cactus is still green now.
Speaker 2: Souarros are columnar cacti, which means that their stem or
Speaker 2: trunk and sometimes their limbs resemble columns. You know that
Speaker 2: they're pretty, uh, pretty vertical in their structure for the
Speaker 2: most part, not counting you know, in the arms and
Speaker 2: so forth. But like a column, it is a strong,
Speaker 2: stable structure. Uh. The sorrow in particular boasts the system
Speaker 2: of ribs. These are rod like woody structures inside the
Speaker 2: cactus that provides strength and durability and as a if
Speaker 2: these cactus specimens are hurt or certainly after they die,
Speaker 2: this this rib like structure remains and it begins to
Speaker 2: create these very vivid, like spectacular scenes for the onlooker.
Speaker 2: You will see examples of this, and it can take
Speaker 2: on this, you know, almost kind of ghoulish appearance, because again,
Speaker 2: already we look at these cac dyeing, we think about humans,
Speaker 2: and we compare them to humans, and now we see
Speaker 2: something that looks like bones inside of them.
Speaker 3: Looks almost like a cross between bones and veins. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: but it does have very much the appearance unlike other plants.
Speaker 3: I can think of as the appearance of skin pulled
Speaker 3: back from a human being and you're seeing the structures underneath.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. Also reminds me very much of the monster
Speaker 2: from I'm Married an alien from outer Space.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, a bit of that. But Robi,
Speaker 3: particularly what I was just saying applies to one picture
Speaker 3: I put in the outline for you to look at
Speaker 3: of one where it's the outer covering that originally had
Speaker 3: the spines and the green flesh is not completely gone,
Speaker 3: but it is sort of peeling away, and so there's
Speaker 3: a big window to look in at the underlying rib structure,
Speaker 3: and it does look somewhat grotesque, and yeah, it looks
Speaker 3: like it looks like one of those eighteenth cent illustrations
Speaker 3: of like a you know, a dissection of a human
Speaker 3: body and showing the layers underneath with the nerves and
Speaker 3: the veins and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Now, columnar Cacti exists throughout the Americas, but
Speaker 2: the the suaros survives far further north than any of
Speaker 2: them due to its ability to survive mild freezes. And
Speaker 2: apparently a lot of this has to do with just
Speaker 2: the mass of the of of this particular plant, and
Speaker 2: they can because they can survive a few hours of
Speaker 2: below freezing temps like this, and on top of, on
Speaker 2: top of just like the pure mass aspect of it,
Speaker 2: it seems like there are environmental aspects of their range
Speaker 2: in the sonor and that allows them to sort of
Speaker 2: cheap by in colder months. So this has to do
Speaker 2: with things like mountain shielding from certain wind patterns and
Speaker 2: also passive heat storage and surrounding rocks.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm to understand it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: gambit is, we may get freezing temperatures, but they will
Speaker 2: not law quite long enough to kill the cactus and
Speaker 2: specifically or.
Speaker 3: To overcome our defenses against them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we mentioned like differences in the sorrow depending
Speaker 2: on where it's growing. I've read that most northern Solaro
Speaker 2: specimens have spines to protect the ends of their frost
Speaker 2: sensitive branches, so they'll be like extra spine growths there
Speaker 2: that are just adding. It's like a little sweater that
Speaker 2: they've made out of themselves for themselves, out of spines.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, it's like putting covers on your outdoor
Speaker 3: water faucets during the winter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, except made out of spines. Now, I
Speaker 2: want to come back to that book, the Soorrow Cactus.
Speaker 2: I want to read a quick quote from it. They
Speaker 2: write that quote, since soarros are about eighty percent water,
Speaker 2: we can accurately view them as standing drums of water
Speaker 2: that are effectively sealed from the outside. They point out
Speaker 2: that the water inside the cactus is heavy. It's laden
Speaker 2: or spiked with heavy isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen, and
Speaker 2: this actually ends up marking the tissues of organisms that
Speaker 2: consume bits of the cactus, such as you know, fruits
Speaker 2: and nectar, in a way that has allowed scientists to
Speaker 2: discover how much moisture various desert species gain from the
Speaker 2: sooro in particular.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so by you take an animal and then
Speaker 3: you look at the relative amount of deuterium or whatever
Speaker 3: in it's in the water in its body, you can
Speaker 3: tell if it's been getting into this cactus as opposed
Speaker 3: to just rain water or something else.
Speaker 2: Right, And I have I have not yet taken a
Speaker 2: look at any of the specific studies that have done this,
Speaker 2: but but it is. It is reference in the book here,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was pretty fascinating. Like, you can
Speaker 2: tell do they drink of the sooro? Do they depend
Speaker 2: on it? There's like this, there's like this this water
Speaker 2: tag in their body that lets you know that they do. Yeah, now,
Speaker 2: speaking of that water, I think we may come back
Speaker 2: to this in the next episode. But we need to
Speaker 2: stress that whatever you have seen in a cartoon or
Speaker 2: in an old Western is not a true indicator of
Speaker 2: the potability of the water inside a saro cactus. I
Speaker 2: have a vague recollection of maybe a Bugs Bunny cartoon
Speaker 2: where someone just comes up to one of these cacti
Speaker 2: and just slices it and then drinks out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my memory. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 3: knew I didn't know much about the desert. But I
Speaker 3: knew a few animal facts, and I knew that if
Speaker 3: you're lost in the desert, you can drink water out
Speaker 3: of a cactus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's that's what we were taught via our media,
Speaker 2: and this is absolutely not the case. The water inside
Speaker 2: they're filled with water, but also high concentrations of acids
Speaker 2: and alkaloids that falls short of like outright poison, but
Speaker 2: would prove disastrous for human consumption, even in or perhaps
Speaker 2: especially in a survival scenario.
Speaker 3: What kind of disastrous like complex It just like gives
Speaker 3: you diarrhea, Yeah, like that.
Speaker 2: Sort of thing, Like do you on top of being
Speaker 2: trapped in the desert and dealing with dehydration, do you
Speaker 2: also need like chronic diarrhea on top of everything else?
Speaker 2: You definitely do not. So, yeah, the water inside the
Speaker 2: cactus is not good to go or anything like that. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, We'll come back to the ways that humans
Speaker 2: have used this particular species of cactus, because not to
Speaker 2: say that it's off limits to humans. Humans have made
Speaker 2: use of the swallow cactus for thousands of years, and
Speaker 2: there are various valid ways for them to take advantage
Speaker 2: of its moisture.
Speaker 3: But it's not just like cut and cut and chug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no cutting chug, No sticking a spiggott in
Speaker 2: it and then drinking from it like a water fountain
Speaker 2: or what have you. It's a lot more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: Well, folks, we just looked at the time and we
Speaker 3: realized we really don't have time today to get into
Speaker 3: some of the other stuff we were going to talk about,
Speaker 3: So we're probably going to save some of those sections
Speaker 3: for next time and come back and have even more
Speaker 3: to say about them. So join us again for part two,
Speaker 3: And this will be a great place to end part
Speaker 3: one because it will direct extra special emphasis to the
Speaker 3: advice to not just cut and chug.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, by all means, go out into the wild
Speaker 2: and look upon these giants of the desert, but just
Speaker 2: don't mess with them, don't shoot them, don't try to
Speaker 2: drink them. Let them do their thing and you do yours.
Speaker 2: And in the next episode we'll get into a little
Speaker 2: bit more about what their thing is, and we'll talk
Speaker 2: about the way that humans have utilized the suaro cactus,
Speaker 2: you know, throughout their cohabitation with these giants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you feel tempted to interact with them, you
Speaker 3: can wave back to them. You know, you can mimic
Speaker 3: their posture, you can cheer for them, you can tell
Speaker 3: them it's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think Arizona State regulations would be okay
Speaker 2: with that, not so much the blasting or the harvesting. Right,
Speaker 2: all right, we're going to close it out then, but
Speaker 2: we'll just remind everybody out there that's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, episodes
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do short form episodes,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
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