A Very Unfriendly Plant



The best way to deal with a prickly pear is to
stay away from it.  It may be pretty, but it has
big mean prickly stickers, therefore its name. 

These pretty blossoms make a gardener forget how painful a sticker can be.  It doesn't matter--leather gloves or not. Incidentally, the best way to ruin a good pair of leather gloves is to touch this vicious plant.  The next time you put on the gloves, you discover the sharp little pests are still in your gloves, never to be removed and sure to stick your fingers again.

 The second part of the name comes from the pear-like fruits that appear after the blossoms are gone.  I don't have a picture of these. These persistent plants grow very large if no one disturbs them.