This summer I spent quite a bit of time with a plant known as Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus) that grows wild in the northwest and up through the west coast of Canada to Alaska. If you have ever come across this plant you will never forget it. It grows upwards of 12 feet tall with a tall sharply thorned stalk and wide branching palmate leaves that are also lined with spiky spines. The stalks fall along the ground in snaky decumbent stems that criss cross each other before climbing up to the sky. In early summer, a raceme of greenish flowers bursts forth and then turns into a cluster of bright red berries. This is a big beast of a plant which inspires both awe and frustration depending on the person.