Speaking of acupuncture...
 

Once while on a month long paddling trip on the Rio Grande, we climbed up the cliffs to the Asa Jones waterworks. On the way down, I slipped and slid into a bunch of small cacti with billions of hairlike needles.

I literally had spines all up one whole side of my body, imbedded from ankle to shoulder. They resembled hairs so closely, and were so numerous, that pulling each of them by hand was impossible. I tried using duct tape to remove them, but obviously didn't get them all. I was tortured for weeks by cactus spines, they popped my brand new deluxe Thermarest self-inflating sleeping pad (not that I got any sleep since I couldn't lay down comfortably!!) and I eventually ended up shaving them to at least get them to the point where I could lay down. It took months for them to all dissolve or work their way out or whatever they do when they go away.

I STILL don't know what kind of cactus I fell in hate with.
Are there any desert dwellers out there who might know what the name of this cactus is?

(PS...the Thermarest never held air again, despite repeated applications of tire puncture repair stuff being put into it! :()

*tkrik giggling* I am not laughing at your situation, I am laughing because I can totally relate. Those suckers can hurt and are hard to see as well. I have had a similar thing happen on numerous occasions.

I am not good at identifying plants at all. It was probably one of those "fuzzy" cacti. Maybe someone will come along and have better information.

I do know that soaking the area in warm water for a while helps them to "surface" and come out. I've done that before and it works. I know someone who used Prep-H to get the bigger ones out. But in your case you have to buy a lot of Prep-H. LOL

Here I thought you were going to say that the cactus experience had a therapeutic benefit similar to accupuncture!

LMAO, Holly! You're funny. You all would be moving to cactus country. Or maybe that is what they do in the fancy spas in Sedona, AZ with their cacti and "healing waters" that are said to be there. LOL

Here's a link to a site that lists alot of native Texas cacti with images.

http://earthnotes.tripod.com/cactus.htm

I keep thinking about this, RW. Were they small round shaped cacti? Barrel cacti have tons of those wee little spines. Cholla cacti "jump" at you and have fine spines. Those are the 2 that keep coming to my mind.

If you google small cactus with hair like needles, every link comes up with the prickly pear. If that was the one, you should have eaten it - apparently, they are delicious.

You're all so funny! :p

I would have loved to soak in warm water! We did hit one hot spring and that helped but there were just sooo many spines! I literally suffered for months.

I had to keep my mouth shut and not whine because the surest way to ruin a good river trip is to have a whiner on it and I was with a bunch of guys who would have tortured me more than the cactus did.

I found a picture of the cactus but there was no name attached to the pic so I am no closer to ID. Maybe someone will recognize it from the picture.

oh those are nasty looking little boogers!

OUCHY!!!:eek:

Still don't know the name but I have seen them all over the place. It looks like a cholla type cactus - teddy? jumping?

LOL! It didn't jump at me...do they really "jump" or was that just someone trying to be funny when they named it?

I would have jumped after I slid into it, but I was about 300 feet up the side of a straight up cliff.

You know how something hurts you and you just FREEZE in agony? That was me.
I had people above and below me and they were berating me for stopping so suddenly and I couldn't even answer back until I got to the bottom. I just had to keep climbing down and then when I got to the bottom I walked off and cried by myself. When I was done, I dried up and calmed down and went back to the group and asked for advice. It wasn't until then that the rest of the group knew what had happened and they did help me pick them out, came up with the duct tape suggestion, and eventually agreed with me when I decided to shave them.

If I ever go back to the desert I will be watching for these buggers like a hawk and avoiding them as well as I can, even to the point of not going up anything when they are growing there!!

Jumping Cactus
 

I have one, but i've never tasted it, lol. The house we're trying to buy has bunches of them. I was wondering (every time we went to the property) why they looked like someone had topped them off. They should have been much taller and you could see the ends, where there was like a scab, like the next lobe was picked or cut off.

Then we hit a flea market and one stand had PILES of the lobes. Aha. Somebody must be snatching *mine*. Probably the guys who are cutting the grass.


RW, I don't know the botanical name of the one that got you, but I sure know what I would have called it, LOL.

:eek:

Brain - They are supposed to taste like watermelon according to the website I was reading. Apparently they have to be cleaned very carefully, though.