cactus as a tree?

[Victor Steinbok]

Just a quick note. A quick search for "saguaro tree" gets over 3000 raw
ghits, but virtually all of them are attached to images or are in
captions for images.

There is one interesting exception here
http://oceanicwilderness.com/2011/10/22/saguaro-tree/

In this case, it is a "tree that's trying to be a cactus" rather than a
cactus trying to be a tree. Actually, the cactus resemblance is purely
superficial.

I did not dig very deep in the search results, so the expression may
creep up in straight text further down. But, I thought it was worthy of
a comment before everyone jumps in and tells me I was wrong.

     VS-)

On 3/10/2012 2:12 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> Even though Tim Egan qualifies it as a description objected to by
> some, I am wondering if there is /anyone/ who would consider a cactus
> a tree. This is not a "technically, tomato is a fruit" issue. So,
> technically, "technically" is also wrong here IMO.
>
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/the-trees-are-all-right/
>> The saguaro cactus, with its droopy, anthropomorphic limbs, is the
>> signature tree of the Southwest, though some say it is not
>> technically a tree.
>
> Is Egan just making this up or am I being uninformed?
>
>     VS-)

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