saguaro

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The Word of the Day for May 1 is:

saguaro \suh-WAHR-uh\   noun 
     : a tall columnar usually sparsely-branched cactus (_Carnegiea gigantea_) 
of dry areas of the southwestern United States and Mexico that bears white 
flowers and a scaly reddish edible fruit and that may attain a height of up to 
50 feet (16 meters) 

Example sentence: 
     "For a brief period in spring, ...the saguaro has a silly aspect, as white 
flowers bloom atop its columnar trunk, like a frilly little Easter hat..."  
(Christine Temin, _Boston Globe_, September 4, 1994) 
 
Did you know? 
     Venture into the Arizonan desert on a May or June morning and you may see 
the saguaro in bloom. For many of our readers (such as those living in Arizona 
and southeastern California), this sight -- and the word "saguaro" -- won't be 
anything new. Or perhaps you know this emblem of all things Southwestern simply 
as the "giant cactus," another of its common names. The word "saguaro" 
originated in Opata, a language spoken by peoples of the Sonoran Desert region 
of Mexico. It came into English by way of the Spanish spoken by the Mexican 
settlers of our American West. The very saguaros we see today may well have 
been around when the word was first noted, some 150 years ago --this amazing 
cactus can live for up to 200 years.