Should've had a warning label

It seems that I run into my fair share of prickly, itchy or just downright smelly plants here in the desert southwest. I'll never forget the time I reached out and touched a nettle. That taught me a lesson I'll never forget. I look plants over very carefully before I touch. Sometimes that isn't enough.

I spied this beauty at the beginning of a hike about 25 miles from my home. After looking it over & deciding it wasn't gonna bite I couldn't resist touching it and plucked a seedpod for a closer look.

Big mistake. Not only did the plant feel clammy it put a long-lasting stink on me like I tangled with a polecat. The rest of my hike was very nice except for the chorus running through my head "should of known better & gosh will that smell ever go away."
Polanisia dodecandra - Clammyweed (I call it something else)
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PODO3

Got any plants in your area you'd like to warn the tourists about?

Funny you should put up that one Angele, I actually like it very much.
Here is a picture I took at the wildscape where I volunteer.

And one of the whole plant, very pretty indeed.

It is gorgeous (why do you think I plucked the seedpod?)... but have you ever shook hands with it? LOL

No I haven't, but I do know that it has an unpleasant smell.

That has to be a relative of the garden--variety cleome/ spiderflower, in which I didn't notice the bad habits, thankfully.

I was just thinking of the poor unsuspecting fellow who picks a bouquet of this for his sweetie & then she won't come near him!
I'm going to look up the Cleome & see what it looks like.

It is a relative of Cleome, yes. Both are in the family Capparaceae.

Patrick

Thanks Patrick & Sally.. youve sent me down a wonderful path..
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?q=Cleome&Search=Search+PlantFiles
I'm sure to add some of these to my yard they are just what I am looking for: like this one!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/696/
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CLSE

Those other Cleomes are beautiful too, good find Angele.

Cleomes reseed like crazy and they are full of prickly little thorns.

Angele, you may want to help other gardeners by adding a (warning) note to PlantFiles: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/785/ along with your ZIP code to indicate it grows in your vicinity ;o)

Thanks Terry, will do if I can figure out which of the 8 Polansia in Plantfiles it is! I haven't been able to. Anybody want to help? :-) I was thinking Plain old Polanisia dodecandra but it says flowers are fragrant & also the Dwarf part is throwing me.
all 8 here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?q=Polanisia&Search=Search+PlantFiles
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/785/

I would say it is Polanisia dodecandra
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PODO3
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/785/
Don't let the dwarf name throw you off.

Thanks Josephine & Terry. I'll add my 'helpful info" :-)

Great story. Never saw that one and if I was in your area, I probably would have touched it too.

Reminds me of my nettle story. I was cleaning out old sticks from an old beaver house from in front of where we would later build our house.
DH kept saying "watch out for that nettle"
I didn't know what nettle was and asked him. He replied something about it was pickery.

He repeated the warning several times, and I didn't take him too seriously, until I brushed up against it with my fingers.

Well, instant stinging, like bees. My fingers got bumps and white spots and stung like fire. I tried washing it in the lake and was whinning and asking what to do.

DH's reply "you don't touch it in the first place"
(There is a big difference between picky and injecting acid into your skin.)

I found out later that Touch me not (spotted jewelweed) is an instant cure. I have used it several times, but I am far more careful about that one. And some people eat nettle, NOT ME!

I don't plan on ever touching a nettle again!! Wish I had know about the Touch me not because my fingers stung for hours.

Oh, it is a nasty one, that is for sure.
I learned my lesson.

Here is another one to watch out for Stinging serpent - Cevallia sinuata
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/73869/
I've only seen it once and did not touch. The stems are covered in tiny stinging needles. but.....
I was standing right in the middle of a trail of Red Harvester Ants http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/4629/ as I was looking at this flower. They have a dreadful sting & will most often bite when they are actively harvesting. I only got bit once. I'm fortunate because I was wearing boots & jeans and only one was able to find his way under my pant leg.

I might add this plant is native to 4 states. I think it is fascinating.
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CESI
Josephine.

I can spot poison ivy a mile away, but I have never learned to recognize nettle although I learned it does grow around here. The ranger said he eats it. Picks it by inverting a plastic bag over it, and cookin stops the sting. I haven't tried...

I didn't know it was edible Sally. Sounds scary to me :-)

ha ha, I'll stick with my lamb's quarter!

I guess when nettle is young and picked with protective gloves it is ok, you cook it like any other greens.

Nettle grows here in wet swampy areas. I had some growing by one of my pitcher pumps and used gloves to it out of the ground. I still got burns through the gloves, pulling up just the one plant. I am not eating that!

I have bought chayote safely before. Stangely it is in the melon/cucumber family. In a Mexican store I saw what greatly resembled a kiwi, slightly larger in diameter and watemellon shaped.
I tried to pick it up and it stung me ! One of those thorns stayed in my finger for over a week. It too was a chayote.

There are 3 kinds of chayote according to Diana Kennedy, "The Cuisines of Mexico". "A small light green one, a creamy white one and a large dark green one covered with long, thin spines". She says the spiny one is the best but hard to find in the U.S. However, that book was written 35 years ago. We had some of the white chayote in a stew last night. It grows along the roadsides here but, to be honest, I'm not sure which kind! The white one came from the store.

There must be more now. This was smaller than the common greenish white one. The spines looked like kiwi fuzz.

Maybe that is the spiny one. Did you eat it?

No, I was mad ar it.

L.O.L.! I can understand that.

There's something here called Noseburn (Tragia sp.)....named for obvious reasons. I've never got my nose near it, but my feet and lower legs have met up with it on many occasions. One day, I was working on something in the yard and asked my husband to com help me with something for a minute. He came out in his shorts, since it wouldn't take more than a minute. I told him to be careful about Noseburn, but he didn't pay any attention. Yeah, it really got him! Little bitty plant you wouldn't usually notice at all, but it really gets your attention after it touches your skin!
There's a small one in this picture, just to the left of a Skeleton Plant (Lygodesma texana) flower. Oh, and I'm trying to get stinging nettle to grow here...it's a butterfly host plant!

This message was edited Mar 10, 2008 8:19 PM

Gee Linda, that one looks tame enough.

Stinging nettle here only grows in pretty wet areas. Do you have a pond or marsh area?
I have never seen many butterflies around it. The flowers are very tiny.

Cool & good info on the Tragia species Linda! A state search at the USDA site shows 5 grow in New Mexico. There are even 2 that are called catnip noseburn. Hope my kitty doesn't ever sniff one!

No pond or marsh, just a dry creek. The stinging nettles don't necessarily need that much moisture. A friend of mine is growing some in her yard, it does fine apparently with moderate watering. But this Tragia species might be for fairly dry regions, I think. The effect of touching it is not as bad as a certain nettle that does grow along waterways and moist areas in Texas. It's just that you don't normally notice it, which makes it very hard to avoid. That photo, for instance...I didn't know the plant was there, was just seeing the Skeleton Plant. I noticed the Noseburn later when I looked at the photo.

This message was edited Mar 11, 2008 11:00 AM

There are several species of Tragia in PlantFiles...and they could all use some details, especially a warning that contact may cause a rash ;o)

Caught up with this thread late, but funny about the mention of Cleome. I just planted three Isomeris arborea globosa (syn. Cleome arborea globosa) or bladderpod. The flowers are quite pretty, and I'm looking forward to the seed pods. Anyone used the fruit in place of capers?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/63687/

k

Beware the Bunny Ears!
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search.php?q=Opuntia+microdasys+&Search=Search+PlantFiles

Cactus are known for their thorns. Many are very obvious and just about scream "Don't touch" An exception to this is the Opuntia species which have something called glochids: tiny, some almost invisible barbed hairs! In my opinion the sneakiest of all is the Opuntia called Bunny Ears! These pads look like my grandma's chenille bedspread, cute fuzzy plants just begging for a rub on the ears with nary a thorn on the plant to warn you away. Don't do it!! I just had to remove dozens of these glochids from my camera strap. They are so tiny they are hard to remove.

I rescued one of these plants from the path of some road work and my usual practice when moving cactus is to handle by the roots as much as possible. Some web sites claim Opuntia arenaria is the only Opuntia with glochids on the roots but I believe this plant has them too. I slathered white school glue on my hands, peeled it off when it dried. That removed about 99% of the glochids... but there is always that one or two left behind to torment you.

The glochids are also on the fruit of Opuntia. I don't know how the critters eat them. Humans often prepare them by first burning off the thorns.

Oh, yes, been there and done that! Thanks for the tip about the glue, in case it ever happens ACCIDENTALLY again. lol And I didn't know about the roots.

For the little ones I've planted, I use an old sock around the cactus and never touch them. Big ones would take larger clothing. ;-)

This is soooo funny. I was just thinking about this plant!
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a greenhouse and sold flowers and plants to the local florists.
She also grew catus. She had this one. I remember the decieving little fluffy spots!
They looked soooo soft. Then you spent days trying to see the slivers in your fingers.
Thanks for posting.
A good memory. (even if it hurt to learn)

glad I'm not the only one! hehe, misery loves company :-)