Jumping Cholla - Post Attack - Beautiful Arizona Day

Jumping Cholla - Post Attack - Beautiful Arizona Day , From a distance the jumping cholla, or teddy bear cholla, looks like a fuzzy, soft plant with many short, fuzzy branches looking like teddybear arms, growing from the top. As you get closer you realize that the cuddly looking plant is completely covered with silvery spines. If you are unlucky enough to touch the spines, you will find yourself painfully stuck to a spiny segment that seems to have "jumped" off the plant. Segments will also "jump" when stepped on and attach themselves to your leg. Cholla pronounced cho-ya is a Spanish word that means joints or jointed. There are nine different species of Cholla in the Tucson Basin. Another name for Cholla is Jumping Cactus, because of the disconcerting habit of coming unjointed easily. If you touch even one spine it is enough to detach a joint, then when you move more joints become lodged in your skin. To make matters worse, the spines are barbed and therefore difficult to remove. We desert rats carry a comb with us. Remove the spines by sticking the comb under the cactus and flipping it away. The trick is to not flip it back into your skin. The next step is to take a pair of pliers and remove the remaining barbs. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• jumping
• cholla
• attack
• arizona

[StellarChi]

@liberalinthedesertaz Thanks for Info..though,.this was merely an attempt at comedy not real desert dangers.

Hard to believe the cactus was waiting for me walk by and jumped 3 feet to attach itself to my leg & hatch babies sores just inside the epidermal. Man it still Itches real bad....

[liberalinthedesertaz]

BTW that is a segment of the true jumping cholla, C. fulgida.

And NO they don't do that. The segments detach easily so they fall to the ground under the plant often times because of the wind/rain. And no they don't jump onto you you have to brush up against them.