Nasty Bark

First, take fifteen seconds to guess at what you’re looking at above.

Last week I was tasked with putting together a fire for a BBQ. Our neighbor (and long-time AFB reader) Bar mentioned that there was a log on the sidewalk just down the street. I had seen it earlier, and figured the neighbor’s tree-pruning service left it there. (They’d just had a massive pruning job done on the massive jacaranda in their front yard.)

So I went around and picked it up. Man, it was light! Looked ten pounds, probably weighed five. This log will burn good, I thought, as I carried it back to the fire pit.

Five minutes later, I picked up the log again—yeow! I dropped it immediately. Suddenly, there were fifty tiny, white spines in my hands.

This is one fingertip.

After five minutes of pulling spines out of my fingers, I took a closer look at the log. Half of it was just a normal tree, with some bark missing and some bark intact. The other half was a different story:

Click for a larger image.

Needless to say, my next thought was: “Blog opportunity!” So I grabbed the camera.

My next thought was: “What the heck is this?” I had assumed (probably in error) that the branch came form the jacaranda tree. So the spines must be another plant; perhaps some sort of “porcupine lichen?” With “quills” that come loose when brushed against? There are lots of crazy life-forms out there, so I didn’t rule anything out.

As I write this blog, however, I’m looking at these pictures very closely. And I can only conclude that the spines are part of the tree. Look at how they’re coming out of the bark, almost like hair out of skin follicles. Most telling, look at the area around the knot in the tree.

So maybe this is a cactus after all. Still, if so, this is the most tree-looking cactus I’ve ever seen.

Here are a couple more pictures… it’s a rather beautiful thing, I must say. In a cold, spiny way.

Unphotoshopped. Click for a larger image.

A less-spiny part of the bark. Click for a larger image.