David Attenborough encounters the most DANGEROUS plant in the desert!

[marked50]

10. Agree that chollas are bad news.

We live in New Mexico and they thrive here. Not the TeddyBear version. They are pretty in Bloom but that's all you can say about them. They have many branches that eventually die off one or two at a time and litter the surrounding ground. We took our dog once to a place that had a trail amongst a "forrest" of them, not particulary close to the trail. Worse thing ever for the dog.

Some of the spine clusters were on the ground. The dog just stopped immediately and would not move. It was so so sad in removing them. Carried the dog the rest of the way.

And interesting thing about these dead sections of cholla branches is that the Mexican wood rat (pack rat) uses them to surround their nests as a means of protection. They also live in the base of a full plant sometimes. Go figure on how they avoid the spines.

Also, we have learned not to wear any shoes worn outside into the house because you can easily get those small, multi-pronged clusters into your shoe soles and track them into the house. Not fun to step on them with bare feet.