Stone Age Kids Visit the North American Southwest!

 


    In the first book Stone Age Kids Solve a Giant Mystery, we find Ell and Al in the Southwest of North America. I want to share with you the plants that are going in the book. All of which are still around today!  This will be a three part blog series, as there are a lot of plants to cover! 


    The Saguaro (suh-wah-ro) is the tallest cactus on Earth! It commonly reaches 40 feet high. The tallest one was measured at over 78 feet tall! This outstanding cactus is often home to birds. We call the appendages from the center column arms. Some of these guys never grow arms, and the ones that do have to wait until they are 75 to 100 years old! Their fruit ripens from a green color to a sweet and juicy red. 



    The Joshua Tree is from the yucca family! It is often called tree yucca or the yucca palm. It can grow grow up to 70 feet high but usually tops out between 20 and 40 feet. The Joshua Tree is suffering from climate change and is expected to loose 90 percent of its population by the end of the 21st century. The tree yucca has difficulty spreading to other areas due to the extinction of the Giant Shasta Ground Sloth whose dung contained many seeds and other parts of this plant. It is thought that the Giant Shasta Ground Sloth was instrumental in spreading new growth of the Joshua Tree plant.


    The Hedgehog Cactus is a short ground plant. It only reaches about 1 foot high. There are over 60 species of Hedgehog Cacti. It gets its name from the spiny fruit it produces which are edible. I chose a pink flower for the book, because pink is my favorite color! 

I'll keep you posted on the book's progress and when and how to order! Thanks for reading! Please share if you can.

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