I have often wondered what kind of
food chain there would be in a desert that would allow people to live there.
Oh, yes, I’ve heard about certain rats, rabbits, coyotes, snakes, lizards...
But the fact is that as you go down the food chain to smaller and smaller
creatures, eventually you have to get to plant-life. On Earth, it seems a
pretty likely bet, anyway.
I am often disappointed by authors
and filmmakers who forget there needs to be some kind of food chain. In my
latest viewing of “Dune” - I can’t remember which version of it I was watching
- it occurred to me that the people on the planet were apparently colonists, or
descendents of colonists. There was much talk about the great worms, with no
talk of what they ate. One assumes that there was a mouse species on the
planet, but they might have come with the colonists. One assumes there are
mice, because the nickname the common people adopt for Paul was the name of a
species of mice who fight back. And in one scene, I saw at least 1 beautiful
butterfly. Nowhere did I ever see any kind of plantlife out in the wild. So...
what did the butterflies, the fierce mice, the worms and the people eat? I
don’t know. I don’t remember anything like that being mentioned in the book,
either. Sigh.
By comparison, Earth deserts are
veritable hotbeds of life. So let’s take a look at another desert food source
that I’ve heard about.
The organ-pipe cactus grows in the
Sonoran Desert and Baja California. It has a very short trunk, from which dozens
of stems grow, producing what one might think of as a bush. Its root system
only reaches about 10 cm (4 inches) into the ground, but are sufficient for
sucking up monsoon water when it occurs. Otherwise, the plant is pretty
water-tight, with a water-proof skin and plenty of thorns to keep from getting
eaten. An individual cactus can live 150 years, but doesn’t produce fruit until
age 35. Probably because a good growing year will see it add a whopping 2.5
inches a year to its height.
In May and June, the organ-pipe
cactus develops white/creamy flowers that only open at night and usually close
back up by mid-morning. That doesn’t leave much time for day-time pollinators
to get to it, but bats do the job just fine during the night.
Just before the rains come in July
and August, the fruit ripens and splits open to reveal bright red flesh
surrounding lots of seeds. Or maybe the fruit was red and the inner flesh was
purple; I’ve seen it described both ways.
I didn’t find a lot of recipes for
preparing organ-pipe cactus fruit. Apparently, you simply mash the fruit flesh
and seeds into a sweet paste, which could be eaten as it was. Or you could dry
it out to make a spreadable jelly. Another way would be to separate the seeds
and place them in storage. Later, you could grind the seeds into a flour to
make seed cakes. So, you could have your seed cakes and fruit jelly both!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenocereus_thurberi
www.nps.gov/orpi/learn/nature/organ-pipe-cactus.htm
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