they usually live to be 150+ years old. cutting one down in Arizona, where they’re native, is a felony with a maximum 9 months in prison.
in my brief wikipedia exploration to find out how old they could be for this ask i found out that there was a dude in 1982 who was vandalizing one (which is also highly illegal) by shooting at it and then poking at it, and not only did the 500 pound arm of the cactus he was shooting at fall on top of him, but the actual trunk of the cactus then also proceeded to fall on him. he died. smited by the cactus gods for his transgressions
There was one we had in our backyard that fell on our fence and buckled the steel bar. When the guy came by to take it away he sliced into roughly foot long segments and we kept one. It was really cool in the inside, also the chlorophyll is on the inside. My mom turned the outer layer into a lampshade
Sorry it’s dusty lmao no idea how to clean it
i…………..idk how to react to this but this is definitely an item i wasn’t expecting
here’s another fun fact about saguaro cactuses (or cacti - both are fine!): when they die, the flesh on them erodes away and leaves these really cool wood-like structures
