The message of prickly plants

I'm particular to prickly plants. And thorny ones. The bristly-er the better. I like a plant with attitude.

Wild rugosa roses - the best roses for medicine - have extremely bristly canes that fight back ferociously whenever it comes time for me to trim them, unless treated with the utmost deference; meanwhile, their cousin hawthorn's thorns are lethal weapons that can literally blind anyone who blunders into them.

Stinging nettles, there's another one that will inflict pain to the unseeing; and burdock with its velcro-like burrs won't let you pass without something to remember it by.