By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light
Article copyright Nancy Rynes, 2022
What if I told you that Saguaro Cacti can sing? Would you believe me?
I sure didn't believe it until I experienced it for myself earlier this year.
Susie, a friend of mine from Sedona, Arizona, came down for a visit to Tucson a few months ago and we spent one day exploring ancient Native American sites in the area. One of our stops included an area of ancient rock art in Saguaro National Park.
The winds blew strong that day from the southwest and we both struggled to keep our hats on. We admired and photographed the rock art for quite some time, looking at it from all angles, trying to get a sense or impression of the people who created it.
Just as we were about to turn back and move on to the next site, Susie called out, "The cactus is singing!"
"What?" I thought I heard her wrong. We were surrounded by Saguaro, not a choir. But Susie insisted that the cacti were singing. I watched her move from cactus to cactus, apparently listening to something. Curious, I stepped up to a cactus to see if I could hear it.
Sure enough, when the next gusts of wind blew up and hit the cactus, I heard a hum coming from the cactus. Actually, I heard two levels of humming. So I tried a different cactus and sure enough, it hummed too although its tones were slightly from the first.
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| Susie Smith listening to the song of a Saguaro cactus. |
What were Susie and I hearing on that day?
Remember that it was very windy, with gusts of well over 35 MPH. The first level of humming that we heard was actually the sound of the wind passing over and through the numerous needles of each cactus. It's similar to the sound that the wind makes when it blows through pine or fir trees, a whooshing hum whose tone seemed to be dependent on the size and spacing of the spines on the cactus.
The second, deeper level of humming took me a little longer to figure out. Think about a Saguaro...it's a tall column consisting mostly of water, held upright by tall, thin, inner "ribs" that provide it structure and strength.
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| A Saguaro Cactus. |
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| The inner ribs of a dead Saguaro Cactus. |
I think the cactus was acting almost like a drum, the entire structure itself reverberating or humming as the wind blew against it. This level of humming was deeper in tone and much fainter than the sound we heard as the wind blew through the needles, but it was there nonetheless.
Do the other cacti nearby hear each other's songs? I don't know for sure but I'd like to think they do. Maybe there is a cactus concert, one to which we humans aren't usually quiet enough to hear.
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