The prickliest of all prickly pears…

The name must be sounding like an oxymoron - just like “pleasant pains”. “Prickly” is less likely to make you smile, but the latter half - "pear" - does. Lined up on the edges of each green pad, topped with short-lived flowers showcasing a desert spring, is a feast for our eyes. The wild beauty of those yellowish to reddish flowers allures bees to suck nectar and pollinate, though unaware of it.  

       Call me برشوم (Burshoom) if you find me among Arabs. Some even call me التين الشوكي (Thorny fig).My name tag on a botanical farm reads Opuntia ficus-indica. On Abha streets, vendors sell peeled ripe prickly pears, ready to savor. Go for it once in season. Fans say that prickly pears are rich in antioxidants and a great deal more, leaving me with the impression that their claims are exaggerated. But one thing I know for certain: nobody cultivates prickly pears over here, yet it grows on its own in abundance all around. As such it is perfectly organic.

      If, by any chance, you are tempted to pluck a few invitingly ripe fruits growing by the wayside, your inexperienced hands will regret it in no time. No-one will stop you, nor will anyone rubberneck at you for trespassing. This lovely exotic fruit is fortified with a blanket of invisible, sharp, hair-like prickles. They readily detach themselves from the plant and attach themselves to you. You have no way of knowing this until your skin registers the sensation of being penetrated. It is more irritating than painful. It is almost impossible for humans to avoid being pierced, but camels can.

We have our own tools and techniques to bypass the undesirable part of anything we do or use. We human beings as a race have survived this long only because of that ingenuousness. Popular science books would tell us that most desert plants are thorny to help protect them from predators. 

But the Grand Designer who created the camel outsmarted these defensive designs of his own, letting it snack on cacti, too. I always wondered how camels manage to send their prickly meal down to their stomach. It was only later that I came to know that camels have a set of hardened structures called papillae that line their mouths. These help them eat even the prickliest pads of juicy cacti. If you want to know more on how it works, go ahead at your own risk. Best of luck to your exploratory mind,Click here.