In general, cactus plants are the slowest growing plants on earth.
One kind of cactus, the saguaro, grows just one inch in the first ten years of its life.
The saguaro cactus doesn’t grow a branch until it’s 16 years old, and after that, it grows just an inch a year.
But some pine trees that live very far north in the cold Arctic or very high up on a mountain can grow even slower than a cactus.
One tree, a Sitka spruce, growing in the Arctic, grew only 11 inches in 98 years. The saguaro doesn’t begin to flower until it’s about 60 years old.
The saguaro cactus can be found in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, in Baja California, and the Mexican state of Sonora.
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