Pachycereus pringlei (Cardón)

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Pachycereus pringlei (S. Watson) Britton & Rose 1909

Cardón, cardón gigante, cardón pelón, sagueso, sahuaso, Mexican giant cardon, elephant cactus

These imposing cacti are native to the Sonoran Desert and on the Baja peninsula in Mexico. They can live for hundreds of years.

Plants: Cardón occurs as very tall columns, sometimes branched, up to 36′ (11 m) high, with trunks 2′ (60 cm) in diameter. (The tallest cactus ever recorded is one of these, at 63′ (19 m). They closely resemble Saguaros, a related species, and play a similar ecological role. Stems are strongly furrowed with 10-16 ribs, dark green or bluish green, becoming yellow green.

Flowers: Multiple white flowers appear near the tips, each up to 3″ (8 cm) long. They are shaped like funnels or bells.

Fruits: Spherical fruits are covered with yellowish brown fine hairs and bristles, and are 2½″ (7 cm) around.

Habitats: They occur almost throughout the desert areas of Baja California and near the coast in central Sonora. In Sonora they is abundant in a coastal belt about 50 km wide.

Green fruit (left), mature fruit, and the fruit interior. By Wilfredor.

References:

Anderson, Edward F., The Cactus Family, Timber Press, 2001, p. 536

Online References:

CalPhotos at the University of California, Berkeley

Cereus pringlei S. Watson 1885
Pilocereus pringlei (S. Watson) F. A. C. Weber 1898
Pachycereus calvus Britton & Rose 1909

1/5/2026 · East of Kino Bay, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico · By John W. Kent

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin)
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Caryophyllidae	Cacti, many other succulents, carnivorous plants, and leadworts
Order	Caryophyllales	Includes cacti, carnations, amaranths, ice plants, and many carnivorous plants
Family	Cactaceae	Succulent (water-storing) plants, often spiny
Genus	Pachycereus	From the ancient Greek παχύς (pachys), “thick,” and the Latin cereus, “torch”
Species	pringlei	After Cyrus Guernsey Pringle (1838-1911), a Quaker imprisoned for refusal to enter the Union Army, later an ardent collector and classifier of southwestern flora, eventually donating 500,000 specimens to the University of Vermont, to what became the Pringle Herbarium

About plant names...

Range: Zones 10-12:

About this map...

Pachycereus pringlei description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.