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While plowing through tons of the stuff on our Upper Peter's Canyon Loop, tewa and I started wondering if catclaw is native to the area or if it is an introduced species that has run rampant. Anybody know for sure?

Carlson says no

Google or Wiki Acacia gregii, the wiki page says it is native from Northern Mexico to Southern Utah, so I would guess that the catclaw found in the superstitions is native.

There are a couple other species that people commonly refer to as catclaw. At least a few of them are listed as native in "A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert".

By the way, I opted out of crossing Peter's Mesa last month, figuring the catclaw would be nearly as awful as it was in LaBarge Canyon.

i think i have seen what are commonly called catclaw in 2 species, mimosa and acacia. both hurt!

rushthezeppelin wrote:While plowing through tons of the stuff on our Upper Peter's Canyon Loop, tewa and I started wondering if catclaw is native to the area or if it is an introduced species that has run rampant. Anybody know for sure?

No - it was planted by the USFS to discourage HAZ users from experiencing the wilderness.... :GB:

My favorite catclaw episode was getting tangled in a thicket. It was stuck to my back and my front and both arms, and the worst was a big one hooked into the skin on my bicep that I couldn't work loose. It was trying to pull the cover right off me and it hurt almost bad enough for me to say something. I had to pull out my knife and cut the branch while the hook was in me, and I couldn't keep every stroke from making it pull harder.

After going on the JF-Fish Creek loop with the Supes HAZ wrecking crew, I had a small catclaw thorn stuck in my finger for at least a week, it would not come out.

The most common plant called catclaw is acacia greggii catclaw Acacia - It's native to the southwest, pretty much anywhere in the Sonoran Desert below 5000', though it's thickest on slopes near riparian areas. Not only is it a great wildlife habitat plant, but it was used as a food source by Native Americans. Here in Pima County, it's actually a protected species - if you rip one out while you're building your house, you have to plant 2 more in it's place. Hard to imagine it needs our protection - it seems to have a pretty effective home security system.

Some people also call wait-a-minute bush catclaw, but it's a different species mimosa biuncifera. It also has that evil recurved thorn - though it tends to be a smaller bush, closer to the ground, and a little more delicate (if something so viscious can be thought of that way) They're both in the same family as the mesquites, palo verdes and other acacias found all over the Sonoran...

I just pulled out a thorn tip from our Rough Canyon trip a month ago last night...that sucker was in there deep.

How do you make it into a food source...eat only the animals it ensnares??

rally_toad wrote:After going on the JF-Fish Creek loop with the Supes HAZ wrecking crew, I had a small catclaw thorn stuck in my finger for at least a week, it would not come out.

If you had been carrying the Extractor snake bit kit you could have sucked it out at the time and saved a lot of pain and suffering.. :bigth:

Yeah, and it would have helped with te-wa biting you every 20 minutes too

SuperstitionGuy wrote:If you had been carrying the Extractor snake bit kit you could have sucked it out at the time and saved a lot of pain and suffering..

The last place I dug a catclaw hook from would have been really hard to reach with an extractor, unless I had a really brave volunteer.

The last place I dug a catclaw hook from would have been really hard to reach with an extractor, unless I had a really brave volunteer.

Is this the segue to merge this with the hiking nekkid thread?

writelots wrote:Here in Pima County, it's actually a protected species - if you rip one out while you're building your house, you have to plant 2 more in it's place. Hard to imagine it needs our protection - it seems to have a pretty effective home security system.

Why does it need protection? My god the stuff grows like wildfire and it protects itself pretty well, I just can't see it needing our help to survive