The prickly pear blooms in spring, even after a dry winter when even the most dependable flowers fail to show. By August the flowers’ fruits, which make an excellent jelly, are ripe and maroon. The black bear often comes down from the mountains for these tasty morsels. The prickly pear’s pads have a high oxalic acid content making them poisonous to almost all animals except the javelina, which have a specialized kidney that allows them to eat prickly pear pads year round, spines and all.