‘Locals would have you believe that the concept of paisley itself came from ‘The Paisley Prickles’ but that’s the sort of re-writing of history that Americans sometimes try to slip under the radar for the sake of tourism. The reality is that paisley prickles thrived under other names in several parts of the world before the pattern was utilized in South Asia, eventually popularized in the west, and that the link between said pattern and the North American paisley prickle fields was a connection made entirely in retrospect.
All this to say that ‘The Paisley Prickles’ field in Arizona is just one of many global sites but the only known to exist in the states. Beyond their little white lie, locals are frank about the plant’s disconcerting properties. A light touch induces a painful paisley rash that lasts for a week, at least. ‘The Paisley Prickles’ are hyper-resilient but the field is self-contained. An eighties-era attempt to destroy the patch was met with failure and several contemporary attempts to grow it in a lab or derive some mystery cure from its essence have resulted in poisonings. A single groundskeeper remains on staff for the field and his job consists entirely of clearing weeds from the visitor path. ‘The Paisley Prickles’ have not, in his thirty years, attempted to cross the fence he installed in 1992.
The meta leaf-on-leaf pattern suggests, to some, that ‘The Paisley Prickles’ are a product of intelligent design. The going theory is that the patches indicate, in the style of ray cats and atomic priesthood, something dangerous at their epicenters- that they represent a message left behind by something that preceded humanity and overestimated humanity’s ability to perceive cryptic warnings.’
I’ve been wary of plant-specific destinations since the trouble with fairy ferns all those years ago, but for all that ‘The Paisley Prickles’ seem dangerous, it would take cross the fence and walking several more minutes before contact with one would be possible.
This is exactly what Hector does the first chance he gets, slipping from my hands as I attempt to harness him and jettisoning himself into the patch at its thickest. I clamber over the fence but can’t bring myself to get any closer than that myself and soon enough I see Hector hoofing it back in my direction, already showing signs of the rash on his bare skin.
Hector spends a week looking like a high-end purse, his thick hide raised in paisley. It doesn’t seem to bother him much.
-traveler