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Prickles on a blackberry branch. In plant morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles, and in general spinose structures (sometimes called spinose teeth or spinose apical processes), are hard, rigid extensions or modifications of leaves, roots, stems, or buds with sharp, stiff ends, and generally serve the same function: physically defending plants against herbivory.
Viburnum lesquereuxii leaf with insect damage; Dakota Sandstone (Cretaceous) of Ellsworth County, Kansas. Scale bar is 10 mm. Knowledge of herbivory in geological time comes from three sources: fossilized plants, which may preserve evidence of defense (such as spines) or herbivory-related damage; the observation of plant debris in fossilised animal feces; and the structure of herbivore mouthparts.
Besides their chemical content, the spiny leaves may also cause mechanical damage to the body. Iris sibirica: Siberian iris, Siberian flag Iridaceae: Most parts of the plant are poisonous (rhizome and leaves), if mistakenly ingested can cause stomach pains and vomiting. Also handling the plant may cause a skin irritation or an allergic reaction ...
Prickles and thorns are an evolved defense against herbivores — animals that eat plants — and can also aid in growth, plant competition and water retention, according to the study. It was ...
The hooks or teeth generally cause irritation, and some species commonly cause gross injury to animals, or expensive damage to clothing or to vehicle tires. [citation needed] Burs serve the plants that bear them in two main ways. Firstly, burs are spinescent and tend to repel some herbivores, much as other spines and prickles do. [3]
The spines are the relatively large, radiating organs; the glochids are the fine prickles in the centres of the bunches. Glochids ( Opuntia microdasys monstrose ) Glochids or glochidia ( sg. : "glochidium") are hair-like spines or short prickles, generally barbed, found on the areoles of cacti in the sub-family Opuntioideae .
An aggressive and hardy invasive species, T. terrestris is widely known as a noxious weed because of its small woody fruit – the bur – having long sharp and strong spines which easily penetrate surfaces, such as bare feet or thin shoes of crop workers and other pedestrians, the rubber of bicycle tires, and the mouths and skin of grazing ...
For example, the article says that spines are derived from leaves, but none of the four sources I listed at User:Peter coxhead/Work page#Spines vs. thorns restrict the term to leaf-derived structures. Also, the use of spinosus as an epithet is relevant; many plants with such names have what the article calls "thorns", e.g. Prunus spinosa.