I thought I knew all the plants that would attack me in southern Illinois…then I headed off trail to find a good spot for a cathole and started to push through a shoulder-high thicket of these guys:

This proved to be a mistake, due to the hitherto-unnoticed-by-me spiky thorns all over their stems. I found another spot, so now I’m just left with small punctures & curiosity.

  • @s38b35M5
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    11 year ago

    Could it be Aralia spinosa?

  • @tlongstretch
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    11 year ago

    I’ve seen a lot of thorny weeds but I don’t recognize this particular one. Looks kinda like honeysuckle but honeysuckle has no thorns

    • ffmikeOP
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      21 year ago

      I was thinking maybe some kind of locust tree sapling but I think the leaf shape is wrong. I’m surprised no one has recognized it; it was all over the place. Then again if Beehaw is like most online communities most users are from the coasts rather than the midwest.

      • @tlongstretch
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        1 year ago

        this seems like a prime use case for AI image recognition tools. There was some iphone app called leafsnap that does somthing like this… can you upload a picture and it finds likely candidates. Haven’t used it in years, this was pre-chatGPT era

        Oh and yeah… could be black locust. Not sure why I didn’t tihnk of that, I have a billion of them in my yard