Tire Bead Goop

A half hour south of here it's short grass and cacti. The only palm fronds are from trees that were planted. I lived in lake county for about 10 years, and had the fun of keeping them from growing im my driveway.

Palm trees aren't native to this part of the state. Oaks and pine trees along with real dirt and grass are common, though. Ask Karl. He stopped by for a short visit on his way south of here.

And one style of cactus which was around where I grew up I called "watch-out cactus" because the needles had a dry husk on them, and when you pulled a needle out of self, the husk stayed around nearly forever in your skin. The husk could provide a continuing path of air through the walls of the tire and tube.

If anyone really knows the name of that cactus (insanely branching and re-branching bits about the diameter of a pencil or a bit fatter), I would love to have identification. This was in South Texas, sort of between San Antonio and Laredo, FWIW.

Enjoy, DoN.

See if you recognize it here.

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DoN, among those links that I looked at, the bottom 2 pictures on appear to have lots of thin branching parts. However, the range map seems to show only a small patch near Sanderson or Marathon (north of Big Bend) so there may be better matches for what you remember. Eg, range of Pencil Cactus seems to include Laredo: (but it doesn't seem to do much branching).

Hmm -- a wonderful resource, but I've checked most of them now with little luck. The closest is:

Opuntia (Cylindropuntia) imbricata (Tree Cholla)

but the stems are too fat, and it is shown only well North of where I saw these.

Most of the cacti on the left-hand side of the page were low balls and pincushions. This grew at least five feet high. Most of what gets near that high is the Prickley pear varieties.

The interesting thing is that none of the photos which I noticed were taken in LaSalle County, which is where these were. An un-documented species, perhaps? (Maybe he has just not visited LaSalle County yet. :-)

Thanks much, DoN.

Caltrop cactus? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

I believe those are only found in LEO county, California.

-- Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. -- Storm Jameson

Way too low. Think at least shoulder height, where you could accidentally brush against it if you were not observant. :-) It would go about four or five inches, then branch -- repeatedly. I don't remember the parts near the ground being fatter -- but they really must have been to support the load of all the branches.

Nope! Not at all. and the thorns should have a length about three to four times the diameter of the stem.

I think that I'll try to contact him, and suggest that he visit LaSalle county. It *may* be that this never develops photogenic blossoms, which seems to be the primary focus of the web site. :-) I know that *I* never saw the blossoms -- but there were times of the year when I was less likely to go into the place where I knew some were.

O.K. I just sent him an e-mail. We'll see what comes of it.

Thanks much, DoN.