Disclaimer: The following is not intended to be a rigorous textbook (ha!), but rather is meant only for the edification of hikers and bikers who might experience intimate contact with certain hostile forms of desert vegetation.
| Cactus | ||||
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Everybody
knows cacti are all spiky 'n dangerous, so I won't belabor the point.
But two topics need mention.
Firstly, some types of cacti appear to have no needles, just little spots. Don't be fooled. In those spots are microscopic 'somethings' that will work into your pores and irritate you no end. The other 'problem' is 'staghorn' Cholla (choy-ya). Ranging in size from little to humongous, and shaped like a skinny balloon animal, it's completely covered with barbed needles up to one inch long, which grow from tiny clumps. |
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When you or your clothes get stuck, the entire clump
breaks from the plant,
providing many more points to punish the reaching hand.
Between growing seasons some clumps fall and form a carpet, later to stick on your tires or shoes and so enter your life. Normally cacti can easily be avoided, but some small hard-to-see ones have two-inch needles. (OUCH!!) They're just flats waiting to happen. To prevent this I run heavy duty tubes filled with 'No-Flats'. Yes it weights the rim terribly, but the alternative is a never-ending series of puncture stops. (muttered curses) |
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You're looking at the thorn of acacia greggi,
also known as Catsclaw, Devilsclaw, Texas Mimosa, Uña de Gata, and my choice,
'The Grim Reacher'.
This is the thing most likely to draw blood from you on a regular basis.
The thorns are small (1/4 inch), and non-barbed, but hook toward the plant. The branches are like steel cables. The attitude of cacti is: "BACK OFF!" Catsclaw says: "Come into my arms, dalhing!" Don't do it. All those slender stems act just like velcro. Typically one will hook on your clothes, dragging much of the branch into close proximity with your tender epidermis. This is unpleasant. When it happens, FREEZE. Don't pull back or you'll be sorry. To extricate yourself, carefully unwrap each stem until you're free. Then breathe again. |
The upside is that if a thorn does break off in you, the wide base
makes for easy tweezering. (I use my teeth)
The main difficulty is Catsclaw's unhappy facility for growing across open spaces (like roads and trails), at inconvenient heights (like eyes, throat, and uh, groin). Keep your eyes well peeled or they'll be, well, you know. Catsclaw is water-loving (for a desert plant), with deep roots, so is usually found along dry washes in the foothills and down onto the plain. Although it may reach full tree stature, it's thin hooked whips grow mostly out, sometimes claiming much acreage. By a cold winter's light, when the leaves are off, a speeding biker may not see that slender stem in time to avoid it. That's how you 'earn your stripes'. |
Other dangers: Most other species are almost harmless compared with the first two catagories. A little common sense is all you'll need. But one, the dreaded 'Goathead', which is found generally in towns, will eventually flat all unprotected tubes.
It's a small unassuming ground-cover type of plant, with pretty little yellow flowers. However, the rock-hard Goathead seed (1/4 to 3/8 inch wide) appears to be adapted for sticking onto the hooves of ruminants drinking at a spring, to later break off and seed other springs.
Those little spiked horrors are perfect for hitchhiking on auto tires too, allowing them to spread everywhere there's water. By the way, Goathead seeds are too small to see while standing.
Step on one barefoot and you'll do the war-dance.
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