For many years now, there’s been a small area in my backyard lawn which has grown a really cool plant. When you touch its dark green leaves, they curl up so you can see the purple undersides. How amazing is that! I have memories of my Mum showing it to my middle child when she was still in single digits (she’s the one who just graduated high school last year) and the two of them were leaning over it, heads bent together, stretching out their hands and gently stroking its leaves to watch it react.
Fast forward to a few evenings ago. I was walking barefoot across my lawn, playing with Kiya. Something I do extremely rarely, as there’s generally lots of twigs, leaves, and of course, the risk of snakes. But the lawn looked so inviting, and the grass so green and soft.
Until it wasn’t. Two steps was all it took before I was yelling in surprise and trying to work out how I’d stood on several bindiis in each foot when it’s not even bindii season.
Huh. That shy little plant, which curls its leaves when touched, has a MUCH darker side.
In fact, I’d venture the suggestion that it doesn’t so much curl its leaves because it’s shy, but removes its pretty face to expose its thorns! Because YOW!!! They hurt!!!
And to think that all of my dogs, year in year out, have been running across this foot-stabber, and I’d never known because I’d always worn boots!
So down I went. The several thorn wounds in each foot were throbbing, and I wasn’t careful enough getting them out and managed to prick my left thumb as well. But by the time I was thorn-free, I was also determined. No longer would this cute looking plant live in my garden. I was going to rip it out, then and there.
Easier said than done though. I often garden without gloves, and I didn’t want to waste a minute, so I started pulling at the first long stem I could find (imagine a clover plant structure… a little like a snowflake where the stems run along the ground and smaller stems branch out from there.) Now imagine that there are two thorns which jut out from the stem, approximately one centimetre apart. EVERY SINGLE centimetre!
Seriously! The only place this thing does NOT have thorns is on its roots!
But I was determined. By the time it was too dark to see, I’d pulled by about a third of the patch. By hand! I was quite proud.
In the kitchen that evening, I was relating the story to my middle child when she said, “do you mean the mimosa?”
I replied with, “I don’t know?!” as I’d never been told the name of the plant. Then, when I showed her how purple my left thumb had turned, and the cuts from thorn-skewering on my right hand, and mentioned that I could still feel the holes in my feet throbbing, she said, “I wonder if it’s poisonous?”
Huh. Turns out it is.
My feet holes were still a little ‘twingy’ the following morning, but my left thumb and thumb / index / middle finger of my right hand? Very noticeable the next day. Left thumb still purple! And when I went to get some more Mimosa out (using gloves this time, you’d be glad to hear) I had to stop because I COULDN’T GRIP AND TWIST WITH MY RIGHT HAND!!! The joints in both knuckles of my index finger would NOT move the way they needed to! Crazy or what?
They’ve calmed down now. Mostly. It’s three days later and all except the top joint on my index finger are back to normal. And that joint will hopefully regain its flexibility soon. But I now have a VERY healthy respect for that Mimosa’s defence mechanisms!
I told my mum the story yesterday. She laughed quite a bit. “Didn’t you know it had thorns?” she asked.
Well, no. I wouldn’t have let it remain alive in my backyard if I’d known!
I made the observation that she seemed to have known. “Of course!” she replied. “We used to have to weed it before and after school, back in the village,” she finished (she grew up in Malaya in the 1940s).
Huh. If only someone had told me.
So: lesson learned. Sometimes pretty things hide a defence system that is so overwhelmingly powerful it can take out your right hand for several days! Who knew?
Have a great week of learning yourself, dear Reader!
- KRidwyn
