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Mexico’s Pacific North States

A spring wildflower blooms in the Pinacate Desert region of Sonora. Although the arid climate is not good for growing many crops, certain plants can thrive in the desert conditions.

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unless you are a cactus, a reptile, or some very adaptive plant life. Baja’s central desert is under protection because of the kinds of plants that live there, since this is the only place in the world where some of them can be found. The world’s largest cactus, the giant cordon, which can be 60 feet tall, grows here. A special plant called the boojum has learned how to protect itself in this harsh environment by growing straight up in a spire shape. It does not get branches until it is at least 100 years old, and it grows only about one foot every 10 years. Some of these plants are 500 years old. The soil is very thin in this desert, and only odd and determined groups of plant life can grow there. The desert stretching the length of the eastern Baja creates the threads that weave Baja California with Sonora, its neighboring Mexican state. Sonora is 70,484 square miles (182,553 square kilometers) and the second-largest Mexican state. Hermosillo is its capital. Baja California borders Sonora on the northwest. The United States borders it on the north, and the Gulf of California makes the