Unusual dwarf trees in Arizona

From the first moments we touched down in Arizona, I noticed most of the deciduous trees had two common adaptations which aid in their survival: a small size and comparitively thin distribution. Arizona trees are significantly smaller and more thinly distributed than trees in South Carolina. Arizona is mainly desert and lacks water--essential nutrients and the temperatures are fairly high throughout most of the state--so the trees have to find different means to survive. Fewer leaves, larger root systems, smaller leaves, and a small size keep these desert trees alive. Different sections of the Grand Canyon, for example, the Southern Rim and Western Rim, have two very different tree populations. On the Southern Rim, where the trees were not burned as a result of fire, the trees were softwood, had white trunks, and the leaves were fairly familiar in shape but smaller in size. Softwood trunks give these trees leeway in the stong winds coming through this area. The trees near the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon had leaves unlike any in the east; these leaves were long and thin like thin straws. These straw-like leaves are CAM leaves. In Winslow, Arizona, at the Meteorite Crater, the dwarf trees have small round leaves, a dark tree trunk, and a bush-like shape. The bush-like shape would distribute heat and cold and allow high winds to filter through the tree. The small leaves call for fewer nutrients and hold in water unlike larger flat leaves. All of these adaptations aid tree survival in the different regions of Arizona.