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Helen
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Do botanists explain why the desert is full of plants which are full of prickles? (Is this an English word?)
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Ave Maria!
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lapazfarm
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Sure. The purpose is to protect the tender insides and the precious water it contains.
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Rachel May
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Helen,
The technical word in our house is "pokey". 
Since I saw your other post, I've been thinking about this. Here is a website that talks about desert plants.
I think the short answer is that the prickles on a cactus are really leaves adapted to the hot climate. Since they have a small surface area, they don't allow as much evaporation as a regular leaf would.
An interesting thought from that website is that Cacti are "xerophytic adaptations of the rose family." I'm sure there must be a great spiritual analogy there.
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Helen
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Thank you Theresa and Rachel.
The article on the desert plants gives a lot to reflect on, especially during the 'desert of Lent'.
Thanks
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MacBeth
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And it's not just desert plants, Helen. Anywhere where water drains away quickly, like a beach, my be a good place to find cactus. Prickly pear cactus grows well here, not 100 feet from the sea, in the high marsh. Because the sandy soil does not retain moisture, the plant stores its own in the fleshy part of its stem, while the spines don't respire the water away.
The spines also keep my kids from eating all the prickly pears they can find .
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Rachel May
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MacBeth wrote:
| And it's not just desert plants, Helen. Anywhere where water drains away quickly, like a beach, my be a good place to find cactus. |
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I never knew that! Are plants in cold desesrts (I'mn thinking tundra) spiky too?
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MacBeth
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Rachel May wrote:
I never knew that! Are plants in cold desesrts (I'mn thinking tundra) spiky too? |
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Hmm. I don't know! That's a bit out of my territory. Any tundra experts out there? 
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lapazfarm
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You don't really see many spiky tundra plants. Although dessication is a concern, it is in combinatoin with the stressors of cold and a short growing season. Here is a quote from the CDRom "Alaska Wildlife Curriculum" I bought at Denali National Park regarding Tundra plant adaptations:
"Many tundra plants also wear adaptive coats – furry
and waxy coatings on their leaves and stems. Fine
hair or fuzz slows the wind, thus reducing drying and
preserving heat. Dense hairs around the flowers of
the woolly lousewort also act like the glass of a
greenhouse – trapping solar energy. This surrounds
the flowers with relatively warm air, sometimes 34ºF
(18ºC) warmer than the environment. This is
important because cell division, necessary for seeds
to form, cannot occur at cold temperatures.
The waxy coating of many plants also reduces water
loss and evaporative cooling by the wind. Many
tundra plants retain, rather than shed, their deadleaves each year. The dead leaves insulate fragile new buds from the wind and cold. Grass tussocks provide
a good example of this."
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Helen
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In Rachel's article, it said 'spines cast shade'. I thought that was most interesting and these are the thoughts I took away from that article:
Thoughts
It sounds like God gave coats to the plants in Alaska 
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Why so many prickles?
