Glochids aside, cacti captivate

Cactus fruit is now regularly available in fruit stores. With its dark rose-colored peel and similarly colored pulp filled with hard black seeds, it is very refreshing served chilled during the summer. It certainly seems innocuous enough when piled on store shelves. However, if you have any thoughts about foraging for these fruits in the wild, you must be extremely careful.

My introduction to cactus fruit occurred many years ago while vacationing in Israel, when we spent a few days in a tourist cottage in the village of Amirim. Amirim was organized on the principles of vegetarianism and the only request made of the vacationers renting guest cottages was that no meat products could be prepared using the utensils provided by the village.

The cottages were single-family units; each was carefully landscaped with a variety of plants, including mature Opuntia specimens standing over five feet tall. My general policy around spiny plants is extreme caution. However, Opuntia did not strike me as especially problematic, particularly since you could see your supermarket fruit growing atop many of the plants. It was, unfortunately, exactly analogous to expecting real Panda bears to be cuddly just like our childhood Teddy Bears.

As it happens, I was outside as another guest, standing in the driveway, was directing the driver of a car backing into the driveway. As the car rolled back, the man stepped back —right into a large Opuntia. He yelped and jumped forward and I assumed that except for a few painful pricks, he would be just fine. 

What a foolish assumption! While Opuntia do have spines, they are not very long. The real menace, however, comes from the Opuntia’s small hair-like structures called glochids. They grow in tufts and there are numerous glochids in each tuft. To think of them simply as little hairs is to do them a terrible injustice. It would be similar to calling a poison ivy rash just a skin inflammation! Glochids break off and lodge in the skin, and cause an unbearable irritation. They are so fine that it can take days to pull them out manually, assuming you can actually see them. At moments like these, nearsightedness is a serious advantage.

Seeing the agony of this man, I was curious as to how the fruit could be safely gathered. There are a few simple rules. The fruit is never picked on a windy day. The workers always wear heavy gloves and the fruit is rolled thoroughly in the dirt after picking to remove the glochids.

For many years, I have been volunteering in a public garden where one of the collection rooms is devoted entirely to cacti and succulents. Both categories are plants that are primarily adapted to warm climates with dry conditions. Cacti, with one exception, are New World plants while succulents can be found growing on almost every continent. The distinguishing characteristic of a cactus is a small, round cushion-like structure called areoles. It is from these areoles that the spines, branches glochids and even flowers grow. However, not all cacti have glochids.

I had never been particularly interested in cacti or succulents. However, I have a good friend who restricted herself to growing them as houseplants because she travels and these plants do well without watering for several weeks. As I became more familiar with them, I began to admire their shapes and varied growth habits. Their most remarkable aspect is the fabulous flowers many of them produce, as if to make up for the structural toughness displayed the balance of the year.

Recently I was grooming  — weeding — the collection in the succulent house. In the second row, there was a small Opuntia with the most gorgeous, fuzzy new growth of cinnamon-colored areoles. Knowing better, I certainly did not intend to touch it with my bare hands. However, as I reached across it to pick a plant in the row behind it, I felt something prickling. I looked down and the back of my hand looked as if it had been dipped in cinnamon. Fortunately, with a pair of small tweezers used for grooming, I was able to pluck out most of them in less than an hour. It was suggested to me later that I might also try some form of sticky tape to pull off those glochids en masse in the event of a future encounter.

Plants are the basis for all animal life, but they have evolved numerous strategies to protect themselves. They continue to fascinate those who love them.