The thorns were a gift from the gardener of our neighborhood park, who had spied me gazing longingly at them for years. From first sight, I was captivated by their wicked beauty. Some of the spikes are 4 inches long! Formed in clusters on the tree trunk, they call to mind a medieval torture chamber. Yet one spring day, I spotted a fledgling bird slip inside the thorn clusters to evade a cat. That was the moment my fascination turned to love, which grew deeper as I learned more. Evidently dating back to prehistoric times, the thorns developed as adaptive protection against mastodons which favored the tree's honey-sweet seedpods. Even today, they are feared and loathed alike by gardeners, hikers and farmers (they're sharp enough to puncture tractor tires), so a new thorn-less variety now proliferates. Alas, I fear that the thorned variety I've come to know and love will eventually become extinct.
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