The Waterman Mountains are a low mountainous

landform A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement ...

Pima County, Arizona Pima County ( ) is a County (United States), county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 List of counties in Arizona, counties in the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 1 ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Notable among the tree species is the elephant tree (''

Bursera microphylla ''Bursera microphylla'', known by the common name elephant tree in English or 'torote' in Spanish, is a tree in the genus '' Bursera''. It grows into a distinctive sculptural form, with a thickened, water-storing or caudiciform trunk. It is foun ...

'') which species exhibits a contorted multi-furcate architecture; most of these froze in the cold winter of 2011. The Waterman Mountain range is in the

Ironwood Forest National Monument Ironwood Forest National Monument is located in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Created by Bill Clinton by Presidential Proclamation 7320 on June 9, 2000, the monument is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the United State ...

. The Waterman Mountains are not extensive, and merge into the southern section of the Silver Bell Mountains. The south of the range abuts the northwest of the northwest–southeast trending Roskruge Mountains. The highest point of the range is Waterman Peak at .

Prehistoric ecology

The prehistoric

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

and

plant community A plant community is a collection or Association (ecology), association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The comp ...

of the Waterman Mountains area of

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

has been reconstructed to its composition as far back as the last glacial period, the Late Wisconsin

glacial A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

period. Dominant trees of that era, based upon pollen records, were Utah juniper (''

Juniperus osteosperma ''Juniperus osteosperma'' (Utah juniper; syn. ''J. utahensis'') is a shrub or small tree native to the southwestern United States. Description The plant reaches , rarely to 9 m, tall. The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, i ...

''), single-leaf pinyon (''

Pinus monophylla ''Pinus monophylla'', the single-leaf pinyon, (alternatively spelled piñon) is a pine in the pinyon pine group, native to North America. The range is in southernmost Idaho, western Utah, Arizona, southwest New Mexico, Nevada, eastern and southe ...

''), and redberry juniper (''

Juniperus pinchotii ''Juniperus pinchotii'', commonly known as Pinchot juniper or redberry juniper, is a species of juniper native to south-western North America, in Mexico: Nuevo León and Coahuila, and in the United States: south-eastern New Mexico, central Texas ...

''), along with canotia (''

Canotia holacantha ''Canotia holacantha'', also known as crucifixion thorn or simply canotia, is a flowering shrub / small tree in the family Celastraceae. Distribution The plant is native to the higher elevation deserts of the Southwestern United States in Arizon ...

''), and understory plants including '' Monardella arizonica''.C. Michael Hogan. 2009

References

Sources

* C. Michael Hogan. 2009
''Elephant Tree: Bursera microphylla'', GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg
* Neal Erskine McClymonds. 1957. ''The stratigraphy and structure of the Waterman Mountains, Pima County, Arizona'' 314 pages

External links

Waterman Peak Summit, (coord)
{{Mountains of Arizona Flora of Arizona Mountain ranges of the Sonoran Desert Mountain ranges of Pima County, Arizona Mountain ranges of Arizona