WHERE THE SAGUAROS STOP
We know of
several copies of the seminal reference book – Biotic Communities,
Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico – that have worn
out, riding around for years on the dashboards of pickup trucks.
The Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum in Arizona, which
published the book in 1982, sold out its stock of 10,000 copies and
ever since, the book has been getting rarer and rarer among its
audience of resource managers, teachers, researchers and plain old
desert rats. Now the University of Utah Press has recognized a need
and reissued Biotic Communities with an updated bibliography and an
improved, blanket-sized map showing where 30 different plant
communities occur in the region. From dense Sinaloan thornscrub to
arctic-alpine tundra, the plant communities are analyzed in the
book, documented with photos and sketches, and put in terms of
evolution. Editor David E. Brown traipsed the region doing decades
of field work for the Arizona Department of Game and Fish. Chapters
were written by the region’s top natural scientists. If you wonder
how to recognize the transition from Sonoran to Chihuahuan desert
(the saguaro cactuses drop out, the washes take on the look of
gashes) or which reptiles prefer riparian deciduous forests
(Sonoran spiny lizards and tree lizards), this technical and
precise book will be useful. The oversize 342-page paperback costs
$24.95, the separate wall map $15, plus $3.50 shipping, from
University of Utah Press, 101 University Services Building, Salt
Lake City, UT 84112 (800/773-6672).
*Ray
Ring
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Where the saguaros stop.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
