Late spring of 2018 has been quite the saguaro flower show in our Sonoran Desert. Our big cactus out front has had many and will have many more flowers opening.
Flowers appear in April through June. They are white and open well after sunset and close in mid-afternoon. They continue to produce nectar after sunrise.[8] Flowers are self-incompatible, thus require cross-pollination. Large quantities of pollen are required for complete pollination because many ovules are present. This pollen is produced by the extremely numerous stamens which in one case totaled 3,482 in a single flower. A well-pollinated fruit contains several thousand tiny seeds. Saguaros have a redundant pollination system, i.e. full fruit set is possible even if only a fraction of the pollinating species are present.
Main pollinators are honey bees, bats, and white-winged doves. In most years, diurnal visitors are the main contributors for fruit, most of them honey bees. Other diurnal pollinators are birds such as Costa’s hummingbird, the black-chinned hummingbird, the broad-billed hummingbird, the hooded oriole, Scott’s oriole, the Gila woodpecker, the gilded flicker, the verdin, and the house finch.
We have enjoyed the “Bumper Crop” of flowers this year. Click on the image to enlarge.
