The Insidious Devil’s Claw!

I think I came across mention of this plant when I was studying the Tohono O’odham Nation of the Sonora Desert. I finally got curious enough to investigate them, mainly because of the name.

Apparently, (if I read these 2 short articles correctly), there are a number of related plants around the world that are all called Devil’s Claw, Devil’s Horn, Ram’s Horn, Elephant Tusks or Unicorn plant. There is at least one variety that grows in South Africa, and two that grow in the Sonora Desert.

All of these names come from the seed pod, which starts out green, fleshy and shaped somewhat like a small banana. Somebody must have thought that looked like a unicorn horn, so that explains that name.

The rest of the names come from the ripe seed pod, which becomes woody and develops a split starting at one end, so that it seems to form a pair of claws, a pair of horns or a pair of tusks.

One variety that grows in Sonora is annual, so once it germinates, it must form seed pods that year, or die trying. However, for both Sonora varieties, the seeds may take several years to germinate, and the perennial version does not necessarily flower every year, so that particular plant would not produce seed pods that year. The perennial version does have a large taproot, so it is less dependent on a rainy season.

There is a 3rd variety of this plant in the Sonora, but it is ‘partially domesticated’. The Tohono O’odham use Devil’s Claw seed pods in their basket weaving, and they (meaning the women) developed a strain that had larger seed pods whose seeds did not take as long to germinate.

Basket weaving was/is not the only use for these seed pods. The seeds are edible and are a source of important dietary oils and proteins. The fleshy unripe pods are also edible and can even be pickled!

When there aren’t any humans around to plant the seeds, the plants do it anyway, by ‘catching hold’ of a passing animal’s fur (such as a cow) with its claw. However long it hangs on is that much distance from the mother plant, and it’s even possible the fallen seed pod might be broken open by a hoof.

I just can’t quite get over the idea of pickled baby bananas, although there’s nothing to say that these unripe seed pods taste anything like a banana, pickled or not. Of course, when my mother decided to try pickling watermelon rinds, I thought she was nuts, but I came to like that stuff, in a weird kind of way. Wish I had her recipe.

Does anybody have a recipe for pickled unicorn horns?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proboscidea_(plant)

https://www.desertusa.com/flowers/devil-claw.html