TONTO NATIONAL FOREST, Ariz. — Can you call anything a forest, even when it lacks trees?

I think you can. My wife and I drove through a place today that is called “Tonto National Forest,” but to be candid, what we saw for much of our lengthy drive looked nothing like a forest as I understand the term.

The feds own a lot of land out West. Many states west of the Rockies comprise land that is owned by the federal government. So I guess the feds can call their land whatever they want.

National forest?

OK, not all of Tonto National Forest is as I’ve suggested. Much of it from the Phoenix-Mesa region is sprinkled with cactus plants. Yes, they are impressive specimens. They tower over the high desert landscape. And yes, there are many thousands of the cacti all across the hilly and even mountainous terrain.

As we traveled north, though, we did encounter trees that blanketed the mountainsides.

“There’s your forest,” I muttered to my wife. We chuckled.

I was a bit reminded of the time, in 1974, my wife and our very young sons and I drove south from our home in Portland, Ore., way south to visit my father-in-law just north of San Diego, Calif. As we came down out of the mountains north of Los Angeles, we noticed a sign: “Leaving Angeles National Forest.”

I asked my wife, “That was a national forest?” The land was even more barren than what we saw today.

I guess when you hail from the land of seriously tall timber, you expect to see “forests” that actually fit the description.