Blackberry Prickles

As you may or may not know there is botanically speaking a difference between thorns, prickles, spines, etc. Blackberries have prickles, and yesterday one entered my finger as I was attempting to weed. Let me describe the whole story: As it happens there is a rather difficult to access slope on the north-facing side of the house. It has the unfortunate distinction of hosting calla lily, Vinca major, Hedera canariensis, and Himalayan blackberry. The vinca and ivy are the unwelcome intruders from my neighbors misguided attempt at ground cover. For those of you not familiar with this area vinca and ivy will swamp a nice little diverse, native woodland or riparian area until all the wonderful little habitat-producing ferns, roses, and others are killed - replacing it with non-wildlife friendly monoculture. Seeing as how I'm trying to plant a happy little woodland understory there I went weeding. So there I was, thinking about putting in native blackberry and more ferns, Smilacina, and other foresty things as I weeded. The problem is that I had previously cut back blackberry and left the dead cane there in my brush-pile. This was a bad idea because when I went to pull up a piece of ivy a prickle poked me. It seemed pretty minor at the time - albeit painful. There really wasn't any blood, nothing was lodged in there. So I went about my merry way. But the pain kept getting more and more intense. And then, much to my horror, I realized that the prickled finger was swollen! Now all sorts of horrendous soil-borne pathogens in my bloodstream scenarios went through my head. I won't bore you with all the details. But a day later my finger is still swollen and extremely painful. In fact my entire right arm hurts. My poor digit's range of motion is limited and it's amazing how much a right-handed person uses their right index finger. So there's the story. Since the swollen finger is not much to look at here's some pictures from yet another Botanical Garden foray - Ceanothus, Paeonia, and Cattleya!