Toolkit tips: Power of observation

The power of observation is one of the most important tools in your field arts “toolkit.” Sharpen it regularly!

Here’s an example, which I could have missed had I been just looking and not seeing what was happening:

I noticed recently that when pruning a little scraggly mesquite tree (Prosopis velutina) in our yard that the next month it had sprouted HUGE thorns.

I have to ponder: Do plants have genetic memory?

Prosopis species evolved with Pleistocene megafauna. Are the mammoth thorns in response to predation by mammoths? (Even if in this case the predation was by shears, not megafauna!)