On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:31:48 -0600, aasberry wrote:
On 19 Feb 2011 01:49:54 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" ... wrote:
On 2011-02-18, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
....
Those needles would puncture large truck tires as well. Some were
just shy of 2" long, and they could go through the tread or the
sidewalls.

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.
....
See if you recognize it here.

http://thehibbitts.net/Cactus/TXCact...Accounts4.html

DoN, among those links that I looked at, the bottom 2 pictures
on http://thehibbitts.net/Cactus/TXCactus/C.hesteri.html
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:
http://thehibbitts.net/Cactus/TXCactus/E.poselgeri.html (but
it doesn't seem to do much branching).

--
jiw