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.
Could it be Aralia spinosa?
Right on the edge of the range (at least according to https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/araspi/all.html) but you may well be right. Preference for moist soils fits the distribution I was seeing. I’ll believe this until proven otherwise. Thanks!
After looking at some pictures, I see why it’s sometimes referred to as “devil’s walking stick!”
I’d say you’re correct - and that map at the USDA has to be old, because I’m in MN and we absolutely have it here
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
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.
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
