Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t

Kerry Knudsen is a Lichen Biologist who originated outside of academia and worked in construction until becoming fascinated by the natural world and immersing himself in desert lichens.In this episode we talk about the modern human approach to the living world, why the study of natural sciences is becoming increasingly popular among people outside of academia, the biosphere as a living machine, self-education using the internet, and more.  

A lichen is the symbiosis between a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria, many of which can go dormant for extremely long periods of time and tolerate harsh winds, drying out, being blasted with UV radiation, and slowly cooked on the rocks that they grow on. Some of them can live for thousands of years.

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What happened to the transgenic American Chestnut? In January of 2024 news broke out that a "lab error" had "compromised years of research" regarding the re-introduction of American Chestnuts into Eastern North American forests, this time with a simple 700 base-pair gene for blight-resistance inserted into the tree's genome. For those that don't know, an invasive fungus from Asia that was unintentionally introduced to North America devastated the entire population of American Chestnuts, rendering the species "functionally extinct". Within the last decade, however, through genetic engineering, the insertion of a single gene from the wheat plant that can break down oxalic acid has made chestnut blight nothing but a minor pest to the trees whose genome has been altered with it. 

In this episode, we talk with PhD student Erik Carlson from SUNY Syracuse's College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry about this "lab error", how it really wasn't that big of a deal on the long run, and how the project is still on track.

In this episode we talk about how we are explicitly NOT condoning it, how to harvest mycorrhizae from soil duff, what is "KNR" and what "IMO"s are, the paucity of study concerning mushroom diversity in the Davis Mountains and how some species there might be eventually extirpated due to the drying climate, the fungal genus Tarzetta, and more. The episode is polished off by a 40 question botany quiz.

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In this episode I sit down withAdam Black about planting fruit trees in the park, how to save the honeybees, why invasive species don't exist, and how to properly apply a glue-on moustache and select proper attire so as to "fit in" when botanizing in West Texas. /s

Adam Black is a field botanist and researcher with Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories and Arboretum who has traveled to numerous continents and countries researching oaks and conifers (he has nothing to do with permaculture, that is just a sick joke on my part).

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In this lecture we rant about Invasion Biology, Continents as Ecosystems, the concept of a "Living Machine", and David Bowie's package in The Labrynth.

PDF download for this rant : 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rL5WP8zI0-Oqh4DYkRFBpjk0tBrcP9Hl/view?usp=drivesdk

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This was a conversation I had with my friend Martin Grantham about how humans relate to the living world around them (or rather, how most of them don't) and the factors that influence it.

This podcast episode is available ad-free on the Patreon with a screenshare of the presentation that accompanies it at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

How do plants evolve? How do plants speciate? What is allopatric speciation? What is sympatric speciation? How do plants like the Hawaiian silverswords evolve to be such big weird bastards while their ancestors on the mainlaind (the tarweeds) are so small? What the hell happened with the genus Echium (Boraginaceae) when it got to the Canary Islands? Why were islands the big reveal for how natural selection might work when Darwin saw his finches and what the shit? How can geology cause a new plant species to evolve? We cover all that and more in this here episode. Textbooks recommended in this podcast if you wanna be less of a dummy : Ecology of Plants by Gurevitch (3rd Edition) Evolution : Making Sense of Life by Carl Zimmer (the edition with the bunny on the cover). Both downloadable in PDF form from www.libgen.is

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Codi Lazar is a Professory of Geology at California State University San Bernardino and a passionate and utterly hilarious geologist. In this episode, we get into the weeds talking about a wide variety of topics such as how limestone forms, why some plants might be restricted to it, what "serpentinite" is, what's in story for the state of Nevada in the next few dozen million years, how related the granite that's beneath Joshua Tree National Park might be to the granite in the Sierra Nevadas (very), the former love affair between the African continent, Scottland, Newfoundland and Appalachia, and much more. 

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The genus Baccharis is one of the largest and most diverse in the Composite Family, Asteraceae. It originated in South America a few dozen million years ago and has diversified and spread throughout South and North America and adapted to a variety of different habitats due to a number of key innovations such as tufted trichomes that secrete sticky wax, the abundant production of wind-dispersed seeds, and rapid growth, among other traits. When I was working for the railroad and frequently visiting abandoned industrial corridors in California, the genus Baccharis was one of the only native plants that was able to hold its own amidst the concrete, pollution and toxic soil of former industrial sites.

Today we talk with Baccharis researcher Gustavo Heiden from Southern Brazil about his research and study of this tough and remarkable genus, where it originated and what makes it so successful.

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Rants about scrub oaks in the sand dunes of West Texas, 500 million-year-old granite in Lawton Oklahoma and the obesity epidemic aflicting prairie dogs in nearby communities, plants that only grow on Limestone, arbutoid mycorrhizae and symbiosis between madrones and ecomycorrhizale soil fungi, the lack of large-scale native plant growers in Texas, etc.

Species featured here : 
Stenaria pooleana
Quercus aff. gravesii
Arbutus xalapensis
Cirsium turneri
Petrophytum caespitosum
Cercocarpus breviflorus
Baccharis pteronioides
Penstemon baccharifolius
Garrya goldmanii
Eriogonum hieraciifolium

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Did you know that the distal ends and tips of roots are the only parts doing any absorption? What the hell are cortical bundles and why did cacti evolve them? How can cactus roots grow so quickly after a rain and what do we mean by "root spurs"?  How does the South American parasitic plant Tristerix aphylla behave like a fungus when it grows inside its host plant? And if you still don't understand what the hell Parenchyma is, here's your chance for a refresher.

Dr. Jim Mauseth taught plant anatomy and botany for 30 years at UT Austin and literally wrote a textbook on the subject. He's also written a few other books and over a hundred research papers studying the anatomy of plants with an emphasis on cacti, and has traveled to South America and Mexico studying the family on numerous occasions. In this episode we go deep on plant tissues, plant cells, cellular components, plasmodesmata, cell membranes and how the a plant is technically only one single cell when you really get down to it...

A reminder that the previous podcast episode on plant tissues covers some of the terminology in this episode, such as the 3 main tissue types : epidermal tissues, ground tissues (parenchyma, collenchyma, sclerenchyma) and vascular tissue (xylem and phloem). I highly suggest listening to that episode first or at least pausing the podcast if you're unclear about some of the terminology. Remember that tracheids and vessel elements apply only to xylem (which only moves water) and "sieve tubes", "companion cells" and "sieve plates" apply only to phloem (which only moves sugars and photosynthates). 

The 3 ground tissues are : parenchyma (primary walls only, large intercellular spaces, alive at maturity), collenchyma (only produces primary cell walls with thickened and re-inforced corners, alive at maturity), sclerenchyma (primary and secondary cell walls, dead at maturity).

Thumbnail photo shows the incredibly thick cuticle of Ariocarpus, with epidermis below and hypodermis below that, marked with arrows. Vertical hole on the right side is the stomatal opening in the cuticle 

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In this episode: 
We talk about the three main types of tissue systems in plants :

Dermal (trichomes, guard cells)
Ground (Parenchyma, Collenchyma, Sclerenchyma) & 
Vascular (xylem and phloem)

What the hell are these tissues? Whatta they mean? Whatta they do?

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Christ Best is the State Botanist with US Fish and Wildlife Service for the state of Texas, a position he has held for 30 years. He has extensive knowledge of plants in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, specifically. He has worked with numerous rare and endangered plant species including Physaria thamnophila, Asclpeias prostrata, Thymophylla tephroleuca and many more. He has also worked with mycorrhizae on cactus roots, propagating rare and endangered species, and navigating the sometimes tenuous relationship with private landowners in the state. In this episode we talk about propagating rare plants, fostering symbiotic relationhips between roots and beneficial fungi and bacteria in the soil microbiome by intentionally innoculating plants in propagation, endangered plants, peyote conservation (or lack there of), how geology can affect the plant species that occur in an area, and what random but interested people can do for plant conservation.

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Dave Farina is the host of the "Professor Dave Explains" youtube channel, an educational youtube series exploring a wide variety of scientific topics and offering free eduational tutorials on subjects ranging from human evolution to organic chemistry to arthropod taxonomy. In recent years, he has published a number of videos debunking pseudo-science quacks, charlatans, creationists, and flat-earthers. 

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David Keller is a historian and archaeologist from West Texas who based out of Alpine, Texas.

Originally recorded as a class lecture, this podcast episode contains information on root structures and shoots and is accompanied by the PDF found at : 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vA_n1OWw2PpUJSqn3m5lbSOymH_aARB7/view?usp=drivesdk

as well as chapters 23,24,&25 of "Raven Biology of Plants" textbook which can be downloaded for free on libgen.is in PDF form and read on a tablet.

We cover : Apical Meristems, Lateral Meristems (and why monocots don't have any), root caps, cortex, endodermis, pericycle, , xylem, phloem and the components of each.

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We talk about the basic elements of plant identification, how it ties into plant evolution,  evolutionary trees aka cladograms, what "phylogeny" means and why monophyletic" and "synapomorphies" are such important terms.
 

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In this episode we talk about Paronychia congesta, one of Texas' Rarest Plants, which grows on Caliche barrens in Jim Hogg County, as well as Caliche blazing stars, the Crested Peyote of West Texas, planting native plant gardens at Amada's House in Mirando City,and plenty more.

I became fixated on lycophytes because of some of the cool desert-dwelling members of the genus Selaginella, not to mention the utterly weird "clubmosses" that thrive in places as disparate as Northern Wisconsin and the slopes of volcanoes in New Zealand, but in this episode botanist Jeff Benca tells us about his work with relatives of the genus Isoetes ("Quillworts") and how their 250 million year old relatives might have been able to survive the biggest extinction in Earth's history, otherwise known as the Permian Extinction or "The Great Dying".

Jeff's IG : @jeffbenca
FB : Jeff Benca

Thumbnail is Phlegmariurus dalhousianus, photo by Jeff Benca. Other species mentioned in this episode is Lycopodium vestidum. Extinct species mentioned here that were thriving during the Permian Extinction Event and are related to Isoetes are Pleuromeia and Annalepis. 

Compounds that volcanic dykes and sills interacted with that were locked up in salt deposits and related to UV shield degradation during the Permian Extinction Event were methyl bromide and methyl chloride. 

A rant about West Texas Pines and the sand blazing star. At the 40 minute mark we begin our dive into the convoluted, confusing but utterly cool phenomenon of Alternation of Generations we talk mostly about Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) and Lycophytes ("spikemosses" and "clubmosses"), and the ferns, but not gymnosperms or angiosperms). This turns into more of a "lesson" on the subject than a podcast episode. 

Key terms to remember : 

Gametophyte (haploid), Sporophyte (diploid)
Haploid - 1 set of chromosomes aka 1 copy of the genome
Diploid - 2 sets of chromosomes aka 2 copies of the genome (one as a backup copy)
Meiosis (takes a diploid cell and produces haploid daughter cells, two of which later come together to form a diploid zygote/sporophyte)
Mitosis (Cell divides and produces cells identical to whatever the parent cell was, whether that parent cell was haploid or diploid. Mitosis doesn't reduce the chromosome number by half). Meiosis is synonymous with sex/reproduction/the production of haploid cells).

Evolutionary lineages referenced in this episode and their phylogenetic classification:

Bryophytes (An informal paraphyletic classification used to refer to the non-vascular Phyla Anthocerotophyta (hornworts), Marchantiophyta (liverworts), and Bryophyta (mosses) 

Lycophytes : Class Lycopodiopsida, contains 3 orders: Lycopodiales (1 Family : Lycopodiaceae; 3 Subfamilies : Huperzioideae, Lycopodielloideae, Lycopoideae), Selaginellales (1 family : Selaginellaceae), & Isoetales (1 family : Isoetaceae).

Ferns : Class Polypodiopsida.
Contains 4 Subclasses : Equisetidae (Horsetails), Marattiadae (Marratioid Bastards including Angiopteris evecta with 20' long fronds), Ophioglossidae (Whisk Ferns, Grape Ferns, Moonworts), and Polypodiidae (Leptosporangiate Ferns, aka the "classic" ferns including the majority of what people think of when they think of ferns including Maidenhairs, Cinnamon Ferns, Sensitive Ferns, Filmy Ferns, Forked Ferns, Cheilanthoid "Desert" Ferns, Mosquito Ferns, Tree Ferns, Aspleniums, etc.


THUMBNAIL : Archegoniophore (haploid) and Non-photosynthetic Sporophyte (Diploid) of the Baja California liverwort Asterella palmeri, photo by Ken-Ichi Ueda

A conversation with Chemist, Genius, Botanist,, Propagator, & Madman Dan Hosage about Texas Native Plants, Texas History, and more.

NON-BOTANY PODCAST! This week's podcast is a conversation with my friend Jay Lesoleil,  political anthropologist and half the means behind the "Fucking Cancelled" podcast about right-wing populism, the failures of the American left, identitarianism, and how to build a non-insane American working class left.

Andrew Hipp is the director of the herbarium and Senior Sciensist and Researcher in Plant Systematics at Morton Arboretum in Chicago. 

This is one of the most fun and inspiring conversations I've had in a while, and it's about one of the most ecologically important genera of plants in the Northern Hemisphere : THE OAKS (genus Quercus).

In this episode we talk about the 13,000 year old Palmer's Oak in the California Desert, what the hell "Delayed Fertilization" is (hint: it's not common but it's ubiquitous in all members of genus Quercus), Oak Evolution, we go in depth explaining oak pollination and flower morphology and how acorns develop and disperse, how acorns can stand get a bite taken out of them by a squirrel and still germinate, and what overall f*cking beasts of organisms oak tree and scrub oaks are. We also talk about the future of oaks, how oaks will deal with climate change, how oaks dealt with the incredibly hot temperatures during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), why there's so much oak diversity in Mexico, the multitude of ecological services oaks provide and the numerous ecological relationships oaks foster within a plant community, landscape and regional setting. This was a fun conversation and massively enlightening.

Pre-Order Andrew's Book at : 

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo236998258.html

Oak Taxonomic Tree (as inferred from molecular genomic data)

Oak Subgenus Cerris : Eurasia
Oak Subgenus Quercus : North America

Subgenus Quercus, section Lobatae (Red Oaks)

Subgenus Quercus section Quercus
Subgenus Quercus section Virentes
Subgenus Quercus section Ponticae
Subgenus Quercus section Protobalanus

Casey Williams is an botanist and plant ecologist specializing in aquatic plants - both plants that grow completely submerged and which can emerge above the water surface. In this episode, we discuss :

-the stresses facing plants that grow underwater, 
-being limited by CO2 availability instead of water availability, 
-the endangered Texas Wild Rice, 
-how limestone geology influences aquatic plant growth by making CO2 more abundant, 
-utilizing aquatic plants and the fungi that grow on them for bioremediation and treating sewage at the local shitplant 
-how some aquatic plants have adapted to a paucity of dissolved carbon dioxide by supplementing with bicarbonate,
-aquatic plants in deserts, and
-how one plant in particular has utilized an evolutionary strategy more frequently employed by desert plants  (CAM) as a way to cope with fluctuations in CO2 availability. 

Books referenced which can be downloaded off libgen.is : 

Wetland Plants by Cronk
Aquatic Photosynthesis by Falkowski

Vernonia lettermannii and other cool plants of Western Arkansas Novaculite, Ouachita Mountain Orogeny, Chert Glades of Western Missouri, the most obnoxious cicada species in the world, Detroit Rustic, Pittsburgh Museums, Shared Mountain Ranges of Appalachia and Morocco from the times of Pangaea, Northern Pennsylvania Glaciation, and more.

Alan Rockefeller is a mycologist and educator who has been studying mushrooms all over the world for the past 20 years and recently helped described two new species of Psilocybin mushroom from South Africa. He has helped numerous "citizen scientists" learn to DNA barcode fungi and led hundreds of free mushroom identification walks throughout North America. Alan encourages community science, free education and in addition is one of the kindest human beings I know. Also, one time in Mexico we almost both got trapped on top of a freezing mesa together.

Website on Alan's DNA Barcoding Basics:

https://wiki.counterculturelabs.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing

Dr. Daniela Cristina Zappi is a Brazilian botanist, plant collector, and research scientist at the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew noted for studying and describing Neotropical flora, Rubiaceae, and Cactaceae. She has described over 90 species, most recently a new species in the cactus genus Uebelmannia (U.nuda). 

In this episode of Crime Pays, we discuss the different biomes and plant communities of Brazil, what "ecological islands" are, the biogeography of the cactus family, bat pollination in Pilosocereus, edaphic endemism in "ironstone" habitats of Northern Brazil and how iron-rich soils affect the evolution of the plants that grow on them, and why truckstop food in Brazil is not only tasty but also so damn healthy. 

Zoe Schlanger is the author of newly released book "The Light Eaters", which shines a new light on researchers studying plant "intelligence" and behavior.

The state of Texas is one of the most diverse states for plants (and geology) in the US, and contains a large number of plant species that can't be found anywhere else in the United States, yet at the same time an enormous amount of land and plant habitat is being destroyed every day (240,000 acres a year) ,pushing more than a few plant species towards population decline.

This episode is a conversation with botanist and author Michael Eason from San Antonio Botanic Garden about plant conservation in Texas, why the Edwards Plateau is so special, walking the sometimes tenuous line between conservation and coordinating with private property owners in a state where 96% of the land is private, Texas Native Plant Landscaping, and a bunch more.

In this we talk with Andrew Conboy about street trees, urban forestry, habitat restoration, getting stoked on native plant life and how it's practical more than puritanical, Philly, botanic gardens, and more.

Two hours of rants about wonderful plants in Central Mexico. A follow-up to the previous episode and a description of plant species, taxonomic affinities and habitats encountered in the mountains of Querétaro and Guanajuato States, Mexico. Also a brief gear list and explanation of the various tools used when botanizing desert mountains.

Why the genus Garrya (the silktassels) is so cool,
A new Astrolepis sp. (Undescribed)
Stevia pyrolifolia (Asteraceae) - it's waxy-as$ leaves at 10,000 feet
Dyscritothamnus filifolius (Asteraceae) and the limestone cliffs and sketchy roads it inhabits

Vallesia glabra (Apocynaceae)
Spondias purpurea (Anacardiaceae)
Strombocactus disciformis (Cactaceae)
Lophophora diffusa (Cactaceae)
Mammillaria perezdelarosa ssp andersoniana 
Arctostaphylos pungens (Ericaceae)
Comarostaphylis polifolia (Ericaceae)
and a ton more 

This episode sponsored by Fiberpad, where you can glue duct-taped wheatgrass and fiberglass to your face in order to clear up any blemishes nice. What can limestone do for you and how does it form?

A long, winding rant through the mountains of Querétaro about habitats and species encountered at elevations between 6,000' and 10,000' including:
Karwinskia humboldtiana (Rhamnaceae)
Baccharis conferta (Asteraceae)
Penstemon campanulatus (Plantaginaceae)
 Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus (Cactaceae)
Kadenicarpus pseudomacrochele (Cactaceae)
Isolatocereus dumortieri (Cactaceae)
Opuntia stenopetala (Cactaceae)
Pinguicula moranensis (Lentibulariaceae)
Quercus crassipes (Fagaceae)
Agave salmiana subsp. crassispina (Asparagaceae, Agavoideae)
Dasylirion longissimum (Asparagaceae, Nolinoideae)
Various Stevia sp.  (Asteraceae)

featuring mountains made out of marble, seafloors made out of calcium-rich muck, and much more.

Jeff Ollerton is a pollination biologist and researcher based out of the EU and currently working in KunMing, Yunnan Province, China. He has written two excellent books - one entitled "Pollinators and Pollination" and another entitled "Birds and Flowers" about birds as pollinators. In this nearly two hour long conversation we talk about a variety of taxa as well as ecological phenomena. I am still kicking myself for forgetting to bring up the topic of the South African monocot genus Strelitzia (Order Zingiberales) which has a weighted-lever-mechanism that allows only birds to access the stamens.

In this episode we talk with field botanist Ernest Herrera about the rich floristic diversity of the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas and Northern Mexico. We talk about a variety of cool plant species as well as the cultural history and cultural repression of this unique region, how it will adapt to climate change, how to change culture in order to get people to start appreciating their native flora more, how to convince people to kill their lawns, what happened to horned lizards, what's up with Texas Tortoises, and a sh*t ton more.

Ernest Herrera is a botanist, herper, and field biologist born and raised in South Texas.

In this episode we talk about why plant "rescue" is a bullshit term, how Epipactis is probably pollinated hoverflies that it dupes, whats up with this new species of Asteraceae discovered in the Chihuahua desert, why people who don't know much about botany or ecology initially prefer non-native plants orver native ones, best place to get a Texas toast waffle machine, stealing a bus bin from Olive Garden, etc

Note : I mistakenly say Deb "described" this new species of composite. I meant to say "discovered". Blame my sleep deficit gfy

In this episode we talk with Botanist Matt Berger about Death Valley Plants, discovering new species, Limestone endemic plants, Dune Beetles, Desert Shrimp, specifist.ecology and more.

This conversation will make you want to buy a microscope and will make you rethink the way you envision the Tree of Life, where animals, plants and fungi are just a tiny speck on the overall tree of life.

Dr. Julia Van Etten (of the @Couch Microscopy Instagram page) talks about what the hell a Protist is and where you can find them (everywhere). We reveal how Protists are the fine particles that weave within and throughout our world."The Tree of Life is Really a Web".

The paper that the thumbnail is from can be found at : https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/figures?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002395

In this episode we take a break from botany-related content to talk with my friend and fellow former locomotive engineer and railroader Lance Jenkins about railroading, sobriety, sad male archetypes in the US, stealing overtime, precision scheduled railroading and how it's responsible for the wreck in East Palestine Ohio,  "The Sun Train", and a whole lot more.

South Texas Sandsheet, Uvalde County Botany, Using a Leafblower & Diatomaceous Earth to rid yourself of crabs, what the sh*t is a Heterokont aka Stramenophile, Texas Men Will Be Able to Admit Having Feelings in 2028, and more 

In this episode we talk with Hunter Martinez of the Cactus Quest YouTube Channel about how he got into growing cacti from seed and lurking on them in habitat. We discuss the spirituality of loving plants and deserts, the pros and cons of the collector habit common among this family of plants, why so many cacti grow on limestone geology, and the benefits of growing from seed over purchasing full-grown plants.

A series of extended rants about "F*ck the Honeybees", trying to settle beefs between friends, Male Primate Rivalry, Riding Trains in Mexico in 2005 & Brakemen with gold fronts, spreading the cult of native plant gardening via demonstration by example and killing lawns.

A long-winded rant about the social media phenomenon known as Instagram Drug Bros™️ and trying to encourage them to seek spiritual refuge (como se dice nice) in education about plant ecology and evolution rather than just the hoarding and collecting of plants that may have been sourced through somewhat unethical means. Why is plant habitat just as, if not more important than the plant itself? How is the ecological context in which a plant evolves inseparable from the plant itself? Can we get Instagram Drug Bros ™️  to start studying and collecting data on things like native solitary bees? What are the means through which Instagram Drug Bros™️ can expand their scope of interest to include things like phylogenies, breeding systems, pollination ecology, and geologic substrate? Why are so many cacti obligate out-crossers? Why is peyote self-fertile? Why do so many angiosperms produce bisexual flowers and what the hell is a breeding system?

Also includes a nice rant about  a vestigial population of Agave unvittata found growing on a limestone cliff face above a freeway in San Antonio. Was there ever a basement in the Alamo or was that just a BS story that that huckster psychic conjured up in order to milk PeeWee out of cash?

This is a science-heavy episode with Dr. Michael Windham, specialist in Cheilanthoid Ferns curator at Duke Herbarium. Even if you're not interested in this group, they're a great case study in numerous fascinating phenomena including convergent evolution, biogeography (dispersal vs. vicariance), why DNA sequencing is important to taxonomy, self-cloning to escape the limitations of being a fern in a desert, etc. 


"Cheilanthoid Ferns" are a remarkable group of ferns - they grow in habitats where ferns seemingly shouldn't be able to grow - out of cracks in rocks and cliff faces in regions that are both usually very hot and very dry. Genera like Astrolepis, Myriopteris, Notholaena, Argyrochosma, Pellaea (the "coffe fern" in California), Cheilanthes, and more have been blowing my mind years as I frequently encountered them co-occurring in habitats with Cacti and spiny legumes. To the East, Myriopteris alabamensis grows all over drier rocky "microsites" throughout the Eastern half of North America. 
These ferns are often either fuzzy as hell or blue, chalky-mint-green, and waxy with a wirey rachis. It'd be hard for anybody who takes a look at them to not be taken with how cool they look. 

But how do they get it done? What are some of their adaptations? What is the evoutionary age of the family and where is the origin of diversity? What the hell is a "gametophyte" and are they unisexual or the fern equiavelent of being protogynous (and what the hell does "protogynous" mean anyway?). Why is molecular sequencing (looking at the DNA) so important for figuring out how all these plants are related to each other? What is convergent evolution and why have so many genera in this subfamily evolutionarily converged on the same strategies to cope with life in a dry environment? How do you identify species when so many of them look superficially alike and don't produce flowers (what we normally use to identify plants)? How long can their damn spores last (answer : centuries, in some cases). 


We cover it all in this two hour podcast.  If there's a term we use that you're not familiar with, look it up or join the Crime Pays patreon and send me a message. A brief list of topics somewhat sloppily-arranged in an "episode map" is below. Note: until I can alienate the casino advertisers, they seem to be especially herpetic on this episode. Ad-free episodes can be found on the Patreon.

apomixis : 1 hour 20

evolutionary age ; 75 ya

synapomorphies : revolute margins and pseudo-indusia

convergent evolution

center of diversity indicates center of origin

no farina in Notholaena, but flavonoid compounds on capitate hairs resembling cotton-candy

talking about cheilanthoid ferns to explain convergent evolution and how dna can resolve evolutionary relationships 

difference between eusporangiate ferns and leptosporangiate

age of viability of fern spores

alternation of generations

antheridiogen

dispersal vs. vicariance 1:31

apomixis 1:36

This episode consists of a rant about code-switching and friendship/cordiality through friction and being a pain in the ass, along with why dissecting flowers (and not just taking them at face value) with a razorblade or knife is important for understanding evolution, plant breeding systems and pollination ecology, what being "protogynous" is and why so many early-braching angiosperms do it, trying to offend advertisers, helping cacti bang in order to produce seed, and how an undescribed Gymnopilus species found growing on a shrubby Ambrosia species in the Baja California Desert  (thumbnail photo for this episode on spotify) actually contains the psychoactive compound Psilocybin (albeit at very small amounts) as confirmed through HIgh Pressure Liquid Chromatography

A conversation with Tony Figueroa, Senior Manager for the Invasive Plant Program at the Tucson Audubon Society (no affiliation with the National Org) about preventing Buffelgrass and Stinknet from smothering fragile Desert Ecosystems in Arizona. We also discuss why some in the "online permaculture community" (oh gahd) have such an aversion to any and all glyphosate use due to a misunderstanding about how it's used. Other topics include using an electric chainsaw to vandalizeCallery Pears and Crepe Myrtles and other hotricultural atrocity street trees, Why Texas is so uptight, how an invasive arugula-like plant is invading the desert near Gila Bend, and the growth rate of Saguaro Cacti.

A conversation with Dr. Kathleen Pryer (Director, Duke University Herbarium) and Dr. Michael Windham, (Curator of Vascular Plants, Duke University Herbarium) about the University's Decision to cut costs by closing the herbarium as well as the general trend in modern US Academia of failing to recognize the importance of Botany in society as a whole as well as other attempts to defund it.

We also touch on the cheilanthoid fern genus Gaga, named after both Lady Gaga and a section of the roughly 1500 base-pair-long MatK plastid gene region and why cheilanthoid ferns (aka desert ferns) are so damn cool.

Listen to this episode Ad-Free on the Crime Pays Patreon.

Abandon your pre-med or law studies, tell your parents to get bent, and study plant & fungal science, evolution and ecology instead.

Rants about encountering a cool new legume species in the fog deserts and giant cactus landscapes of Baja California, the diversity of perennial raaaaagweeds in the deserts, Gabbro soils, a buckwheat that produces flowers along the ground, Arugula acting invasive as hell in the Arizona Desert, escaping the cultural disease of Southern California, the oils and secondary metabolites of Eriodictyon sessilifolium, a Gymnopilus species that likely contains psilocybin and eats dead Ambrosia chenopodiifolia, etc.

Includes a select reading from an old book of railroad stories I wrote ten years ago starting around 1:05:00

A long, disjointed rant about using and writing Dichotomous Keys and why it's sometimes a process of grasping for straws or throwing a bunch of stuff to a wall to see what sticks, what an ideal floral key might look like if it were written by a neurotic, rambling schmuck fixated on ecology and biogeography. Other subjects include the gradation between ecotypes and species in Fremontodendron as well as the mycorrhizal associations found with Ornithostaphylos oppositifolia (Ericaceae, Arbutoideae) in the chaparral of Baja California, Mexico.

More Deranged Rants, this time about Javelina Management, Getting City Approval for Cactus Restoration and Street Trees, growing endangered plants from seed, Eocene Sandstone, growing xeric ferns from spore, working the Ozol Local and running freight trains along San Francisco Bay and much more

Rants about Montezuma Cypress on the Rio Grande, Cool Desert Ferns in West Texas and the Subfamily Cheilanthoideae of the fern family Pteridaceae, DEA permits for Peyote, Mountain Lions vs. Auodads, kind Caucasian Birders behaving at the Mexican border, funding the research station in South Texas with the nice bathroom, and more.

Rants about South Texas Geology, Geologic Timeline Apps for your D@mn phone, why its better to water before a freeze, being dragged by a freight train leaving Ft. Worth Texas, how much self-hate someone must have in order to lower themselves to the point of patronizing Subway Sandwich shops, and more.

Rants about freezing while trying to sleep in the back of a truck in Lordsburg, New Mexico, why Agaves are monocarpic, the importance of having a "target list" should you ever get diagnosed with a terminal illness, fruit dispersal in Frankenia johnstonii, how rhyolite is just like Satan's play-doh, the biogeography of peyote gourds (Lagenaria sp.), microdosing LSD in the arboretum, and more

Thumbnail pic is Pellaea truncata (Pteridaceae)

A roughly 77 minute rant about how an Australian plant in the legume Family named Crotalaria cunninghamii "looks a like a bird" but only to humans who have smoked copious amounts of weed and certainly not as a product of natural selection, how glyphosate works and why it's the lesser of two evils when used for restoration and invasive plant management, and how dwarf ponies dressed in Hawaiian shirts could be used for the eradication of invasive grasses in desert habitats.

Michelle Cloud-Hughes is a Cactus researcher, botanist and Desert Rat who specializes in one of my favorite cactus genera - Cylindropuntia: the genus of the dreaded Chollas. She has described a new species of Cholla, Cylindropuntia chuckwallensis, and spent 2 decades trudging up mountains and rockscapes of the Mojave, Sonoran and Baja Desert. In this podcast we talk about how Chollas bang, why deserts are some of the best places to study plant evolution, and why the sh*t they can't put solar panels on top of the parking lots of any of America's vast and expansive shopping and automobile culture slums.

Jim Mauseth is a wizard with a microscope and a retired professor of plant anatomy at UT Austin, where he taught for 30+ years. Jim is an expert in Plant Anatomy with an emphasis on Cacti. In this podcast we talk about anatomical adaptations of cacti and why palms are not true trees.

Dr. Peter Breslin is a Botanist out of Tucson Arizona specializing in Cacti, and recently did time in Brewster County Jail for "trespassing" to photograph some rare endemics that only grow on Novaculite (ancient biogenic silica) soils in West Texas. He also helped elucidate some of the evolutionary relationships between species that were formerly classified in the genus Mammilaria but are actually more closely related to the Baja genus Cochemiea, which specializes in hummingbird pollination.

This conversation was fun as hell, and we talk about why nomenclatural change-ups and classifications of this sort are important, and how they tell a story about how organisms (including humans) move and migrate across continents and landscapes, and how the environment (which consists of geology, climate, presence of certain animals, etc) SELECTS for various traits in plants.

We also talk about DNA and transcriptome analysis, and how it clears up some of the evolutionary relationships between plants and how transcriptomes can actually change depending on what habitat conditions an individual plant is in.

We talk about the remarkable genus Pediocactus, a genus of the frigidly-cold high desert in the American Southwest and the radiation that it has had there, as well its ability to pull itself into the ground during the dormant season, effectively "hiding".

LAstly, we clear up some of the confusion around the extremely bizarre and endangered Mexican genus Pelecyphora and how it's related to plants in the genus Escobaria that grow all over North America, including in some very cold climates.

A discussion about Peyote conservation being done by Morningstar Conservancy in Tucson, Arizona and the ethnobotany of the Peyote Meeting, as well as what it means to "listen to the plant".

In this episode we rant about :

Rescuing and digging thin-soiled limestone prairie plants from a soon-to-be-destroyed site in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area weeks before the bulldozers come by to erect a data center or some other obscenity.

Moth pollination in deserts, the chemistry and familiar smell of moth-pollinated flowers.

West Texas sand dunes

Limestome endemic plants like Encelia scaposa and Echinocactus horizonthalonius

Limestone cacti in Southern Arizona, which is a landscape composed almost entirely of volcanics or intrusive igneous rock

Jeremy Spath (owner of Hidden Agave nursery @hiddenagave) and Kevin Krucher (@crazy4cactus) talk about a recent trip through the states of Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and Coahuila to document and explore desert plants and their ecology, including tons of rare species like Lophophora williamsii, Stenocactus phyllacanthus, Astrophytum asterias, Obregonia denigrii, Ariocarpus scaphirostris, Agave Montana, Agave albopilosa and more.

This entire podcast is about the Poison Ivy & Mango Family, Anacardiaceae. Susan Pell , Executive Director of the U.S. Botanic Garden & John Mitchell from the New York Botanic Garden both specialize in the systematics and phytochemistry of this incredible family of plants.

In this episode we talk about the active compound in Poison Ivy, Urushiol, as well as some of the cool adaptations that dryland and desert-adapted members of the family have evolved to cope with their unique environments. We mention a ton of cool plants species you've never heard of before, some edible and some toxic, and spend 80 minutes discussing how cool this family of plants is.

Plant in the thumbnail is Actinocheita potentillifolia from Puebla, Mexico.

In this episode we talk with Zach Frankl from www Utahrivers.org about the (intentional ) crisis afflicting the Great Salt Lake and why one of the largest inland bodies of water in the world may soon cease to exist, all to enrich lobbyists and feed a sprawling mass of suburban lawns and Alfalfa.

More info at :

www.4200GSL.org

and

www.UtahRivers.org

Doug Tallamy is an entomologist, professor, and the author of a number of books, including "Bringing Nature Home" & "The Nature of Oaks". He has been instrumental in educating people about Native Plants and why removing lawn to plant native plants and restore habitat is essential to mitigating ecological - and civilizational - collapse.

Check out www.homegrownnationalpark.org to learn more.

Jeremy Tidd runs Bona Terra Nursery, a native plant nursery in the DC area that grows native plants and also does native landscape installations for people looking to kill their lawns. In this episode we talk about making your own potting soil and fertilizer, using local native ecotypes, regional ecology and the native plant movement in the DC area.

In this episode we rant about DC / Baltimore area botany, filming kill your lawn season 2, the glory of Texas leaf cutter ants, the seeds of ghost plant and the whole friggin' phylogeny really, invasion biology and why it's stupid to say "humans are invasive" and more.

Very little botany-related content in this session with Al Scorch during an interim during the shooting of Kill Your Lawn Season 2 in College Park, Maryland

Sam Droege is a scientist who studies bees and bee behavior based out of Maryland. In this episode we talk bee ecology, how to attract them to your yard, their nesting and habitat requirements, why the honey bees are the least of our concerns, what are the kinds of bees that pollinate Peyote, and why our solitary native bees deserve the most attention.

Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eesc/science/native-bee-inventory-and-monitoring-lab

This episode is an interview with Jeff & Janet Crouch, who sued their Maryland HOA in 2019 and ended up changing state law. Legislation that was enacted in 2021 now makes it illegal for HOAs in the state of Maryland to force people to have lawns or remove native plant and pollinator gardens in their front yard.

Anthony Basil Rodriguez is an ethnobotanist from the Bronx, New York that has traveled the world studying wild bananas. In this episode we talked about his travels all over the world and other notable and incredible plants he has encountered, as well as the people that utilize them.

Marianna Wright is the director of the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, which provides critical habitat for wildlife in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. The National Butterfly Center was targeted by extreme right-wing activists and conspiracy theorists in 2019/2020, including two of the now-convicted fraudsters behind the private border wall project.

This episode consists of a 90 minute rant about the wonders of Cornell University Herbarium (1 million specimens you schmuck), how a cactus came to grow in Brooklyn, Botanizing a filthy industrial creek in Queens New York, the enigmatic Appalachian shale buckwheat (Eriogonum allenii) of Virginia, giving a talk on plant evolution in lower Manhattan, and more.

In this episode with Dr. Rob Rugoso from Cornell University we discuss the chemistry of floral scents, how scent evolves (ie Clarkia breweri), night pollination, flowers that trap their pollinators, floral mimicry & more.

A rant about how prairie soils get built, what exactly a "herbaceous perennial" is and why this habit is so relevant and important to remember when talking about the prairie, how important prairie grasses like big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) are to building rich top soil (hunt: it's the roots), etc.

Other included rant subjects are cigars, killing 16 lawns during the month of September including 4 for a revision series, issuing a fatwa against Midwestern Landscaping and horticultural atrocities, and more

Gerould Wilhelm is one of the two authors of Flora of the Chicago Region - A Floristic & Ecological Synthesis. In this episode we talk about a number of topics, from prairie hydrology, native American belief systems, civilizational ethos and how he sets fire to his suburban yard every year in order to facilitate the diversity of prairie plant communities.

Please check out his long list of essays, research articles, and publications at www.conservationresearchinstitute.com

Fabiany Herrera is a paleobotanist specializing on a diverse array of time periods and paleofloras, including the Mazon Creek Flora from the Carboniferous when Lycopods were friggin' trees, as well as the utterly bizarre Jurassic and early Cretaceous Bennettitales & Corystospermaceae from the excellently preserved Mesozoic lignite of Mongolia.

Many of the plants we talk about in this episode HAVE NO LIVING OR EXTANT RELATIVES - they represent fantastical lineages of plants whose base branches that simply got clipped off the tree of life either during mass extinctions events or gradually during climatic changes. Umaltolepis - a ginkgo relative - is an exception to this, but still an equally bizarre plant.

This was a really fun conversation and it could've gone on much longer but we ran outta time. Hope you enjoy.

A one hour rant about Glacial Till, Kankakee Mallow, Sand Prairies, Stiff Designs for Native Plant Landscapes, Emulating the "Beautiful Chaos" of the prairie, etc.

Keeper Trout is one of the founding members of Cactus Conservation Institute and a research scientist who - along with Dr. Martin Terry - has studied a number of the cactus species in South Texas for 3 decades in an understudied and underappreciated habitat known as Tamaulipan Thornscrub.

In this episode we talk about a broad range of subjects from the history of laws regarding Native American use of Peyote, the impact that melting glaciers in New Mexico may have had on the soils of South Texas, how the history of religion has dictated plant-based religions for centuries, and how fungal and bacterial organisms in the soil and in the plant itself might enable various cactus species to tolerate extreme conditions such as freezes and extreme heat spells.

In this episode we talk about the botany of the Philippines (influenced by a remarkable tectonic setting), volcanic activity, ultramafic soil, "ant-plants" like Myrmecodia (Rubiaceae), Dipterocarpaceae, cloud forests and lowland rainforest) , the psychedelic lichen #Dictyonema , as well as Yucca Pollination on the other side of the globe in East Texas with Adam Black, a botanist and researcher with Bartlett Arboretum.

Rants about Fighting with City Hall over Native Plant Gardens & Tree Planting, Creepy New Age "Healers", mortality in Star Cactus (Astrophytum asterias) from the recent drought and heat, Loving-Kindness-Meditations-and-what-the-sh*t, Nasally Belched Vowels in the Chicago Dialect and much more.

Rants about New Age Massage Parlors, Philosophically coping with "the human tumor" & habitat destruction, acid abstinence & 40 year old virgins, black nectar in the genus Melianthus, etc.

Listen to this podcast ad-free on the Patreon at :

https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Jared Margulies is the author of the upcoming book "The Cactus Hunters", a book focusing on cactus and succulent poaching around the world using a number of case studies from different regions and species. His book is available for pre-order in September, 2023.

In this episode we catch up with Kyle Lybarger of the wildly popular Native Habitat Project and talk about seed-collecting, lawn-killing, burn regimes, the benefits and necessity of hunting and much more.

Intro ends at 8:00. Reminder all episodes can be listened to ad-free by subscribing to the Crime Pays Patreon at :
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

This 1 hour and 40 minute episode covers the ethnobotany, pharmacology, & phylogeny of this psychoactive, potentially-therapeutic member of the Apocynaceae which has recently gained attention for its efficacy treating addiction & PTSD.

First 30 minutes occur on a winded, 900 meter elevation-gain hike. A more thorough, less distracted rant starts at 30:00.

Rants about Brazilian Atlantic Forests and Cerrado (Seh-Haddo) vegetation, seasonal dryness caused by the ITCZ and Earth's Axis of rotation, converge traits of sclerophyll leaves among unrelated plants families, bizarre members of Asteraceae, Tree Vernonias, Xeric Aroids and Bromeliads, and much more.

Intro ends at 6:30

Nick Zentner is a professor of geology at Central Washington University and host of a in-the-field geology YouTube Channel. He has numerous lectures available online at www.NickZentner.com and is based out of Ellensberg Washington.

This episode is basically a 90 minute rambling rant about New Zealand plants & plant ecology, where by a repeated fascination and fixation is expressed with the evolutionary selection pressures produced by a flora that co-evolved with 9 species of giant, flightless now-extinct birds called Moas. We also touch on new Zealand's tectonic forces, the predominant habitat type (Podocarp - Broadleaf Temperate Rainforest) as well as a bit of the volcanic alpine plants like Raoulia. We talk about Psilocybe diversity, the secotioid mushroom habit,and other fungal diversity to be found in these forests.

A conversation with my mycologist friend Alan Rockefeller about fungal diversity in New Zealand/Aotearoa, fungi with caps that don't open (which may be an adaptation to bird dispersal) and some of the weird complexity in the genus Psilocybe.

In this episode we have a 3 person conversation about the Flora of New Zealand, touching on such notable ecological and evolutionary characteristics among the plants here like leaf heteroblasty, leaf divarication, co-evolution with the now-extinct Moas, plate tectonics and vulcanism, how tropical plants have evolved for a chilly temperate rainforest, Jurassic lineages of conifers, the genus Pseudopanax, and all kind of other wild, cool sh*t.

An interesting paper to read about heteroblasty and divaricating branch patterns :

Howard, Jarden. "New Zealand divaricate plant species: Tensile strength and Remote Island occurrence." Journal of Austral Ecology. 2022

Intro ends at 15:03

In this episode we interview Benny Villareal about his work with Peyote Conservation in South Texas and his history with the Native American Church, touching on the topics of Peyoteros, Land Clearance, Habitat Destruction as a result of sprawl, and obstacles conserving what is becoming a rapidly diminishing cactus species in the only place in the United States where it grows - the state of Texas.

Rants about Chonkosaurus, the Chicago River getting cleaned up, the bio-swales that UrbanRivers.org created along the river, Rooftop Graffiti Appreciation Committee, Redundant Praise for the Field Museum and the Plant Systematics Dungeon/Welwitschia mirabilis, How the smell of Cigarettes replaced the smell of piss in the Jackson St. CTA tunnel, etc.

To purchase Chonkosaurus shirts go to

www.crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.myshopify.com

In this episode we talk with Tom Croat of Missouri Botanical Garden, a world expert on Aroids and the family Araceae. Tom has been to over 130 countries studying this family and the immense amount of diversity in it, including their evolution, ecology, and pollination. We talk on all things Aroids, especially in the neotropics. The video accompanying this is available on the Patreon, www.Patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Rants about overpriced museums, crook county, kill your lawn release, Missouri Botanical Garden Aroid Dungeon, getting banned from places of prestige, sweat ceremony, sand endemics of Florida, pissing off prestigious turds in academia, etc.

Lillium Byrd is a Botanist with the Florida Native Plant Society. This conversation took place in a Longleaf Pine Forest while watching fireflies light up the canopy of the trees.

Margaret Behan is an Arapahoe/Cheyenne member of the Native American Church, as well as one of the "13 Indigenous Grandmothers". In this episode we talk about Peyote Religion, people wanting a connection to plants and to the land they live on, hope for the young generations & the future of Lophophora williamsii and its connection to the Native people of North America.

Intro rant is about 25 minutes long.

"Paintbrushes", aka the genus Castilleja, are seemingly everywhere in the Americas, especially in the more arid and montane parts of these continents. Containing 200 species, the genus is highly diverse and broadly distributed, working on the them of being a partial parasites of other plants and producing wildly flamboyant and colorful inflorescences, due in large part to showy bracts that subtend each individual flower.

Mark Egger is a specialist in this genus, and today we talk paintbrushes with him for over an hour - their often confusing flower morphology, their ecology, their diversity, and their pollinators. What are some of the rarest species? What are some of the weirdest? We answer a bunch more questions in this 80 minute long conversation about one of the coolest and most ubiquitous plant genera in North (and South!) America.

Intro is 11:00

Anybody who's spent any time studying or even observing plants in desert or seasonally arid environments is familiar with soil crusts and how bizarre and unique they can be, as well as the role they must be playing in the ecosystem - from providing a nurse substrate for a variety of cactus seedlings to germinate in to stabilizing the soil to adding organic material to what is otherwise rocky terrain to nitrogen fixation. It's an exceptional thing to suddenly realize that the entire ground beneath your feet is actually ALIVE.

In this episode we talk with microbiologist Dr. Corey Nelson about the living soil crusts in arid environments and what the hell is going on with the multiple species of bacteria, fungi, archae and protists involved in this complex community of organisms that thrives where few other things can.

In this episode we rant about pleistocene relict oaks growing on desert sky islands, paintbrush species in the desert, plant communities of the hill country West of Austin, how it's actually not that hard to grow 'Texas" Madrones, how silty sandy loams work great for cactus seedlings, doing CRIME PAYS plant ID classes on Patreon & much more.

Intro is 15:00 long.

Jay LeSoleil is an activist, advocate and one of the two voices behind the F*CKING CANCELLED PODCAST. In this episode of Crime Pays we talk about "cancel culture", the bizarre and deranged ideological path that some elements of modern leftism have taken, 12-step programs, sobriety, identitarianism, how to actually create change, and the effect that social media has had on both left and right wing political movements.

Podcast starts after a 40 minute intro...

Dr. John Clark studies the plant family Gesneriaceae (In the same Order as Salvias, Mints, and Penstemons... Lamiales).

In this podcast we talk about this brilliantly colored often epiphytic tropical plant family and some of the wild sh*t that occurs in it (like poricidal anthers, you say?)...

In this episode we talk with my friend Ron Kaminkow, founding member of Railroad Workers United (www.railroadworkersunited.org) about just what the he11 has happened with North American Railroad Companies in the past five years and what effect it has had on railroad workers, shippers, and more importantly, the general public. We also discuss how the business policy known as "precision scheduled railroading" has given us a glimpse of a very deranged philosophy regarding American business practices and what this could possibly mean for other areas of the American economy.

Check out www.railroadworkersunited.org for updates and more information.

Ricardo Ramirez aka Lizardskinn is a naturalist and photographer who has explored many of the remote areas of Northern Mexico, documenting cactus and reptile diversity with an emphasis on habitat. He has seen and documented many incredibly rare species of plants that most people will never get a chance to see in habitat. He can be found on IG at @lizardskinn

Thumbnail photo by Ricardo Ramirez

*note : when referring to which Sierra Madre is primarily composed of limestone, I stated Sierra Madre occidental (West) when I meant to say Oriental (East). Important to not f*CK this up! Much more volcanic geology than limestone in the West than the East! Sorry for the confusion!

TRIGGER WARNING : This ENTIRE episode is about 40 minutes of inundation in the phenomenon that is the nasally, intensely-obnoxious Chicago accent.

In this episode we do a quick rehash of recent filming of Kill Your Lawn in New Orleans, wrapping up eight episodes. We also discuss the difference between too much paht and a lot of paht, "embracing the swamp" and planting for clay-rich, water-logged soil and some of the species that will thrive in such conditions. We also discuss the leg wear known as Zubas, Mardi Gras parades, the Legendary Locomotive Engineer known as "The Commodore" of the Oakland Terminal and more.

Roger Peet is an artist, printmaker, organizer, & naturalist. IG = @toosphexy

Link Page/store for ordering prints :
https://toosphexy.carrd.co/?fbclid=PAAaaRBHW1j1gc6TJgIdRdjPOudw6KjimonyoNXCYGe_GH-vS1S5iiwbz_IYI

Episodes can be listened to ad-free on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

In this episode we talk about being in "the fitness center of da mind" as a goal of enlightenment, attending a peyote ceremony, being woo-ed to sleep by nightjars and woken up by kiskadees, foaming out over the rare Esenbeckia berlandieri (Rutaceae) of South Texas, creating habitat after you kill your lawn, what's it's like to live in an autoslum (daht cahm), and how to get more Americans enjoying the native plants of their local ecology.

In this episode of Crime Pays we talk with Dr Scott Zona, author of a seminal new book on beginner's Botany ("A Gardener's Guide to Botany") about plants chemical defenses, night blooming plants, cyanide in plants, the bizarre weirdos that are Cycads, and much more.

The beautiful bark of Poison Wood, "What the sh*t is a Hardwood Hammock?", Swamp Walking, Epiphytism, KILL YOUR LAWN, Corraloid roots and why nitrogen-fiing cyanobacteria need them, Tillandsia dungeon inside a cypress dome, OOOOOOOlitic Limestone, why roots splay out and crawl along the surface (ie they're growing on bare rock and don't have soil to sink into), Silver Palms (Coccothrinax argentata), Photosynthetic roots of epiphytic orchids, etc.

An hour talk with Lilium Byrd about Florida Native Plants, rants about the ecological wreckage of South Florida, Hardwood Hammocks, Pine Rocklands, Florida Scrub Jays, & the cultural cesspool. We also talk about trying to cultivate native plant movements as a means of keeping down the figurative puke, why there aren't more native plant nurseries down here, and what it's like to get a rash from Metopium toxiferum.

In this episode we hear a series of rants about the hideous living-concertina-wire that is Pyracantha, the Western Interior Seaway (RIP) and theamy fossils it produced in the Cretaceous limestone of Western North America, why shallow oceans produce more fossils than deep ones, permaculture projects in the desert, the coolest birding shirt ever made, dosing a botany conference, and more deranged and disjointed ranting then you can throw an Inoceramus fossil at.

In this episode we spend two hours ranting about the Flora of Tasmania and why it acts like a time capsule for the relictual flora of Antarctica, tree-like Senecios, the genus Richea and the bizarre floral trait known as an operculum, the taxonomic circumscription of the family Myrtaceae, the act of ruining Christmas, terrestrial orchids mimicking female wasps in order to get pollinated, and more.

To cut to the chase and skip the intro go to minute 45:00.

In this episode Matt Berger and I talk about Tasmanian Botany and filming Tasmanian endemics, the Paleoendemism of the West half of Tasmania vs. the mainland Australian floristic affinities of the East.

In this episode we talk all things Tasmanian Botany, on an island notab for being home to Gondwanan relict plants that provide us a glimpse of what parts of the Antarctic continent may have looked like 30 million years ago before it froze over. Nothofagus, Athrotaxis, Deceptive Orchids with a Pollination Hustle, and the world's tallest Flowering Plant all get mentioned here in this two hour conversation with the curator of botany at the Tasmanian Herbarium, Miguel de Salas.

In this episode we talk with the mycologist and notoriously kind human being Alan Rockefeller about mycology, Psilocybe diversity, getting people interested in biodiversity & the biosphere, turning a sedan into a DNA lab, teaching cops about fungal diversity (against their own will as unintentional pupils), and how to teach yourself mycology. This episode is ad-free on the Crime Pays Patreon.

In this episode we talk with a gentleman who cultivates Peyote for the Native American Church. We discuss his efforts to protect wild populations of the plant by teaching NAC members to grow the plant from seed as a form of ex-situ conservation and to ensure that the species will be available for indigenous use despite declining populations in habitat and declining harvests among the Peyoteros.

Ex-situ cultivation of Lophophora williamsii - Peyote - is a means of preserving it for use by the Native American Church.

As many botanists in the US and Mexico who study Chihuahua Desert ecology already know - populations of the plant in habitat are declining due to poaching - and to a greater extent - land clearance.

Leonardo aka "The Peyote Lorax" informs us of his cultivation methods, his history with the plant, and the ceremonial use of the plant by indigenous peoples of North America for the past 6,000 years. We talk about his work with the Morningstar Conservancy, his efforts to teach his fellow indigenous users of Peyote how to establish and grow Peyote in states like Arizona and New Mexico where the plant is not native but where it can be grown in the ground with winter protection, etc.

This was a great conversation and I'm thankful to Leo for making it happen.

Your continuing support helps enable this podcast.

In this episode we talk with well-known chemist and journalist Hamilton Morris about a variety of topics, including the current status of Psychedelic legalization, Ibogaine (Tabernanthe iboga, Apocynaceae) ethnobotany, chemical synapomorphies of plants, Salvia divinorum, understanding organic chemistry, understanding the evolution of secondary metabolites of plants, and more.

Thanks to Hamilton Morris for editing this and cleaning it up so the sound quality wasn't as rough as my original recording. Please support him and the work he's doing by joining his Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/HamiltonMorris

Your contributions - as well as your tolerance for the shitty ads that occur during it - help support this podcast. Thank you

In this episode we have a 2 hour conversation with Alexis Nicole, aka Black Forager about everything from how she got started learning to use wild plants as food to Eastern Forest Biomes to botanizing the rustbelt.

In this episode we discuss flowering West Texas Peyote populations, riding freight trains through Winslow Arizona, keying out species using a Flora, what the shit is allele frequency and what are species concepts, Chihuahua Desert blooms, getting picked up hitch-hiking by drunk nutjobs, keying out microcharacters in herbarium specimens, Desert Blazing stars, Remembering the Western Interior Seaway, and more, all on a series of long winding disjointed rants.

In this episode, we rant about creepy lights in the sky and Elon Musk, the Conflict Algorithm (™), creating habitat in your ugly front yard, Sticky Plants in San Diego County, Montezuma Cypress in Central Texas, making love to Tucker Carlson's Neckfat, doin' PAHT with Al Scorch, Fall Blooming Composites, etc

In this episode we rant about the horror of common Southern California horticultural atrocities, having cholla branches thrown at you, the burgeoning native plant movement and convincing home owners to kill their stupid lawns, the endangered Baja Birdbush, Ornithostaphylos oppositifolia, Tecate Cypress, Gabbro soils, eating Psychedelics in the Colorado (Sonoran) Desert, and more.

Intro sound from the Cactus Forests of Puebla. Covid Party. Rants against Reagan. Causing a scene at the American Museum of Natural History. Perpetually Scowling White Women. Ecology of Hydrothermal Vents, etc

Endemic to the Americas (save for one species), the Bromeliad Family occupies almost all the ecological niches & environments that a plant family can - Tropical Rainforests, Deserts, the Alpine Zone, Mesic Forests.

In this Episode We speak with Tom Givnish, an expert in the Family Bromeliaceae who has done extensive fieldwork and research studying these plants in the diversity of habitats in which they grow. This episode is akin to a plant systematics class on this extremely cool group of plants.

Initial intro rant is 12 minutes and rambles on about the Prednisone worsening ADD, getting smacked in the face with Poison Ivy while filming magic mushrooms in Mexico etc.

A conversation with Dr. Lucas Majure from Florida Natural History Museum about evolution in the Cactus Family, Hummingbird-Pollinated Tree Prickly Pears, why one genus of Cactus wears a damn Fez (just like the shriners), the subtle nuances of Dogtooth Karst, Weird-Ass plants from Cuba that only grow on a certain soil type, and much more.

A two hour rant about the incredible Cactus Forests of Southern Mexico, the Cloud Forests of Oaxaca, Cool Customs Agents, Drying Herbarium Sheets witta blowdryer nice, Fleabag Hotels, and much more.

In this episode, recorded in the cloud forests of Oaxaca, we discuss the entheome project, which centers around genome sequencing of entheogens as well as many of their sympatric species of fungi, plants and microbes that also grow in the ecosystems these entheogens are native to. We talk about democratizing science and DNA sequencing, and we talk about what some practical applications of this science are and how to make it accessible to people who DON'T want to take out 150 grand in student loans in order to learn it.

Out of Huntsville, Alabama, Kyle Lybarger is an advocate for native plants, ecosystems and for getting people to see things that they might otherwise overlook. Kyle runs the Native Habitat Project which encourages people to consider doing things a little differently in the realm of land management than the ways that they've been doing things for too long.

I've admired this guy's work for a while and I love what he's doing so I figured we'd sit down and have a two hour conversation about everything from growing native plants, collecting seed, discovering species once thought extinct and having a reverence and awareness for the land, for the plants and for the life that depends on them.

Chicago Meditative Cassette Tape Intro by AL Scorch.

In this episode we talk about using transgenic technology to fight the invasive pathogenic fungus that has decimated the American Chestnut tree and made it functionally extinct in the region where it was once a cornerstone of the ecosystem. We also get into the weeds regarding chestnut flower morphology, pollination and evolution and why it's such a f*cking incredible species.

In this episode (after a 35 minute rambling rant about West Texas Archaeology, the joy of holding 31,000 year old ground sloth shit, obscure Chihuahua Desert Sunflowers, and rich freaks, we talk with Dr. Eric Lopresti about sticky plants and the evolution and adaptive benefits of glandular-ass trichomes in plants, namely the genus Abronia (sand verbena) and the flower structure of the Bougainvillea Family, Nyctaginaceae.

In this episode we discuss the glory of lawn killing, using a fake name at the ER since our Healthcare system sucks, facilitating the use of an auger for installing native plant gardens, and a whole other series of rants.

In this episode we talk about the long lost population of Euphorbia antisyphylitica, thornscrub getting destroyed for a solar farm, moth pollination and night blooming plants in the Chihuahua Desert, and the Catholic Materialism Death Cult of South Texas.

After a thirty minute rant about how the epic desert crucifixion thorn (one of the 6 different plants with that annoying common name), Holacantha stewartii needs to be placed in the genus Castela (Majure, 2022) among other topics, we talk with legendary West Texas Botanist and Horticulturalist Patti Manning about growing desert plants and cultivating native plant gardens.

Rambling intro ends at 47:00, Conversation about Velcro Leaf Family Loasaceae begins at 48:00.

Intro ends and conversation starts at 43:00.
My guest today is Joe Ben Walker from the indigenous peyote conservation initiative and we talk all things peyote in South Texas. We discussed the Peyotero System, How licenses are monitored, how the DEA keeps track of licenses, how habitat is being severely threatened and destroyed by land clearance, and how peyote came into use among modern Indigenous Americans (not just the tribes that lived where Peyote grew). This was a very enlightening conversation and one that needs to be listened to by anybody interested in the long term conservation of this threatened plant. 

A Conversation with Dr. Stacy Smith from University of Colorado Boulder about the genus Iochroma and Plant Evolution. A 24 minute intro followed by 90 minutes of talk about evolution, selection pressures and why plants evolve the way they do. I haven't had this much fun on a conversation in a while. 

In this episode we talk Northern Mexican Botany with the wonderful Carlos Velazco, author of numerous papers describing the floristic relationships of Northern Mexican Plants as well as the Nuevo León field guide to plants. The last thirty minutes we spend talking about the discovery of the incredibly cool and bizarre cactus, Astrophytum (Digitostigma) Caput-medusae.
 
 

A long rant about Namibian Botany, Dark Humor, Myrothamnus flabellifolius the resurrection plant, Welwitschia habitat etc.

One long rant about Nuevo Leon plant communities, gypsum endemics, cactus poaching, high elevation "sky islands", Mall Security Guards at US Customs, Herbarium vouchers, etc

In this episode we talk with Kerry Knudsen, a  blue-collar-construction-worker turned lichenologist. We spend a good first half of the podcast talking lichens and the last half of the podcast talking philosophy, and why it's important to be aware of -  if not at least occasionally immerse yourself in -  the non-human world known as "the rest of the biosphere (for chrissakes)". 

In this episode we discuss the rare and endangered Texas Almond, a sand endemic. We also discuss the trough urinal at Taqueria Jalisco by the Pilot Station in Falfurrias, whether Tetragonotheca rrpanda can be grown in West Texas, and being kicked in the groin for exuding "forced-positivity". 

In this episode we talk about the notorious Bristol Mountains Buckwheat which is still formally undescribed despite being known of for a decade and a half. We also talked about limestone geology of the Mojave Desert as well as why people should kill their lawns and why we should film a show about it. This episode also contains a cut at the hilarious Rod Blagojevich Cameo regarding the brad nailer and the $40 for pizza. 

Generic Recombination is the means through which mutations (and evolution/speciation /phenotypic variation) occur, leading to changes in an organism's adaptation to and tolerance of its environment. In flowering plants, meiosis occurs in megaspore mother cells (in ovules aka seeds) and in microspore mother cells (in pollen grains that are produced within the anthers).  A pollen grain then lands on a stigma and germinates, fertilizing an ovule and producing a seed (which is a new and different genetic individual). In fungi, it's a bit different - and a lot weirder. In this episode we explore how it's different and how it happens. 

A ninety minute conversation just scratching the surface of the bizarre-ass phenomenon of lichens, with Matt Berger aka Sheriff Woody. This is a talk about fungi enslaving/farming algae and cyanobacteria and the extremely weird shit that these symbionts can do, occupying some of the harshest terrain - hot or cold - on planet Earth. If you don't find this conversation fascinating you're a dick.

In this episode we listen to a 50 minute rant about peyote conservation in South Texas, the importance of the hundredth Meridian and the humidity differential and the differences in habitat it causes, as well as what the hell a Perithecium is and some of the vertical-rock-wall cacti of Nuevo León. 

The family Fabaceae is one of the most ecologically successful and diverse plant families in the world, especially in arid and subtropical regions. In this episode we talk Legumes - their ecology, floral morphology and evolution - with Marty Wojciechowski at ASU. We talk about the 50kb inversion, psychoactive and poisonous secondary chemistry, subfamily classifications elucidated by molecular phylogenetics, how mimosoids lack Rhizobium root affiliations (bummer) and a bunch more interesting sh#t. Plant in the thumbnail photo is Schotia afra. 

In this episode we talk with Tom Givnish, a well-known research botanist at UW Madison about a diverse number of topics including plants that can completely dry out and not die, how orchids came to be the most diverse and largest plant family on Earth, what my dad's mafioso cousin has in common with achlorophyllous,non-photosynthetic plants and Tepuis in Venezuela, among about other twelve other fascinating topics.

After a 40 minute opening rant, we explore the nuances of the Orchid Family - the most species-rich and diverse family of flowering plants, and we touch on a few of the things that make this family so ecologically successful. This is a good crash course for anybody interested in learning about this plant family and understanding the differences between the five subfamilies Apostasioideae, Vanilloideae, Cypripedioideae, Orchidoideae and the largest subfamily of them all - Epidendroideae. 

In this episode we rant about Asclepias prostrata, the rare and elusive prostrate milkweed of South Texas Thornscrub, as well as obscure subfamilies of the Legume Family, Cops & Dildos, and Old Peyotes. What exactly does the New Legume Phylogeny Working Group DO at their annual Pea Dungeon meet-up? Also, "why you gotta do dat"? 

Jahan Khamsehzadeh, Ph.D. is a psychedelic therapist who's been actively conducting legal, guided Psilocybin sessions in Jamaica for the past 4 years. He's trained within the Mazatec mushroom tradition and mentored for a year at the Center for Consciousness Medicine comprehensive guide program. He's also done workshops with the San Francisco Psychedelic Society. 
 
He has authored a book due out in April entitled "The Psilocybin Connection : Psychedelics, the Transformation of Consciousness, and Evolution on the Planet - An Integral Approach". For more information, visits Jahan's website at www.PsychedelicEvolution.org
 
For more information on Psilocybin Therapy, visit the website www.psilohealth.co
 
For MDMA information and test kits visit the website www.dancesafe.org
 
For more information on current legal status and research regarding psychedelic therapy, look up Rick Doblin or visit his website at www.maps.org
 
 

Intro music by etsywitch.
In this episode we discuss the ever-annoying American culture war and then move on to the science behind mRNA vaccine technology and why viruses are so cool in regards to watching evolution in action (vaccines themselves will act as a selection pressure on viruses, but can the viruses cope and evolve or will they become extinct? Tengo miedo! ).
 
We talk about the history of this technology and just what the hell "mRNA" is and how you can pick it up at jewel-osco along with your ipass for the Illinois toll roads nice. This is a great conversation and hopefully people are inspired to spend a little less time looking at pictures of asses and food on their smartphones and instead spend a couple minutes or more reading about genomics. GFY Bye 😘

Note : Interview starts around minute 24:00
Recording quality on first 9 minutes of interview is lousy but improves after there after so sit still and wait it out ya schmuck.
 
The sunflower family, Asteraceae, does some wild things - morphologically, evolutionarily and ecologically speaking - in the Southern Part of the African continent, especially in the tribes Calenduleae (think trichomes & stinky, oily glands), Gnaphalieae (paper daisies), and Arctotideae (the infamous "beetle daisies"). 
 
In this episode, I speak with Nicola Bergh, the curator for the family Asteraceae at the Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden in Cape Town, to explore just what the hell has gone on with this family in the evolutionary past and how various tribes and subfamilies have dispersed and radiated in Southern Africa.
 

In this episode we spend 150 minutes talking with David Gwynne-Evans covering some of the epic highlights of the Cape Floristic Region's Flora. Even if you are unaware of, oblivious to, or disinterested in this region of South Africa's plant life you will find this episode interesting. The whole landscape of this region is like a giant plant Evolution class and we cover multiple topics letter of interest to anyone who's fascinated by the ecology and evolution of Earth's plant life. 

Mike Brodie is a photographer, truck driver, artist, freight train rider, and diesel mechanic. In this episode we sit down with him to talk about modern American culture, youth subcultures, travel, and the human condition.
 
 

In this episode we talk about some of the plant families found in South Africa and the ecological success of the Mesembryanthemaceae, as well as what the hell is going on with the mess of valvate tepals, adnate anthers, and pollen presenters that is a Protea flowerhead...but first, we dapple 20 minutes of cultural observations into the mix.

One long disjointed rant between three filthy botanists covering the past three weeks of botanic surveys/rectal exams in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa. 

In this episode we talk with Chris Pires, Chief Science Officer at the New York Botanic Garden, about the taxonomic clusterf*ck that is the order Asparagales - the order of the Iris Family, the Orchid Family, the Agave Family, the Onion/Amaryllis Family, and many more obscure families located on distant and disjunct parts of the world. We also talk about how analyzing DNA made it possible to sort out this mess as well as where the larger clade of Monocots themselves fits into the flowering plant tree of life. Disjointed ranting in this episode notably comes AFTER the podcast guess to make it easier for those who might just be interested primarily in the subject of today's episode. 

Today's episode is inspired by the bRaVE individuals (all of us) who participated in the massive back-and-forth online shitposting last week regarding the inherent colonialism of using the binomial naming system of taxonomy, plant systematics and the study of evolutionary relationships among plant taxa.
This episode sponsored by Decolonial Colon Cleanse, the at-home kit for decolonizing Colo-rectal and gastrointestinal issues. Order online at www.DecolonialRectum.com

In this episode we speak with Peter Raven, former director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, about our current understanding of the rise of angiosperms and what the floristic landscape may have looked like prior to their appearance in the fossil record. 

A criminally underrated state for rare plants and plant ecology, Wyoming has a number of rare taxa and bizarre habitats. In this episode we talk with a botanist who spent twenty years in the state documenting, inventorying and becoming acquainted with the flora in the high deserts and alpine plant communities. We speak specifically about the Yellowstone Abronia, Abronia ammophila; the Blowout Penstemon, Penstemon haydenii; and the Desert Yellowhead, Yermo xanthocephalus, as well as about conservation, climate change and Western Botany in general. 

Plants that grow on sinter (silica) and travertine (calcium carbonate) deposits of hot springs, a really bizarre  central Wyoming endemic known from only two locations (Yermo xanthocephalus) whose closest relatives occur in the prairies of the Midwest, and many other topics plus the usual 90 minutes of unattenuated disjointed ranting. 

In this episode we have an hour long conversation with Matt Berger about a loop "trail" (there actually was no trail save for that created by wild horses) created through the mountain ranges of the Great Basin in Central Nevada and the plans seen along the way along with information on how anybody can do these long-distance hikes (especially when everything else in life has gone to shit).
Follow Matt on Instagram @sheriff_woody_pct and on Inaturalist via username Sheriff_Woody_PCT

This episode begins with a 56 minute rant concerning the crime spree caused by the meeting of the Eriogonum Society in Elko, Nevada, followed by rants on the silica "sinter" deposits occurring throughout Nothern Nevada as a result of the intermittent series of hot springs and geothermal activity, which are in turn a result of the extensional tectonics and the fact that Reno and Salt Lake City are moving away from each other and the crust is stretching and thinning. The last seven minutes before our conversation with Ben Grady starts include a rant on illegal squatted gardens and how activists and anarchists tend to consistently be some of the cheapest people on the planet. 

In this episode we speak with Bruce Baldwin about sequencing the DNA of plants to understand how closely we're distantly related they are and how they have evolved. At least an initial understanding, no matter how small, of how DNA is structured will help you understand this podcast but is not necessary. The first 40 minutes are just ranting anyway.
 
Your contributions support this content. To support Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, consider donating a few bucks to the venmo account "societyishell" or the PayPal account email [email protected]...
 
Or consider becoming a patreon supporter @ :
 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt
 
Buy some CPBBD merch (shirts, hats, hoodies n' what the shit) available for sale at :
 
https://www.bonfire.com/store/crime-pays-but-botany-doesnt/
 
To purchase stickers, venmo twelve bucks to "societyishell" and leave your address in the comments. 
 
Plants ID questions or reading list suggestions can be sent to [email protected] 
 
Thanks, GFY.

In this episode we speak with Darin Penneys, Ph.D about his work with an incredibly diverse plant family that few in the temperate zones are familiar with - Melastomataceae. I first fell in love with this family when seeing some of the incredible diversity that it showed in the cloud forest of the Dominican Republic, and upon further inspection became enormously enamored and fascinated with it, and you should too, you prick. From an ecological and evolutionary standpoint this family in the same order as guava and eucalyptus will blow your mind, so get into it. 

In this episode of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't we talk with Naomi Fraga about the devastation to be imposed on 90% of a rare plant's population and the mining company sleaze bags who are trying to greenwash it. We also talk about the BLM whistleblower who first brought attention to the mining company's attempts to circumvent environmental impact reports as well as the vandalism and subsequent rodent damage that occurred at this plant's population last year. Joey also rants about the first time he saw someone shoot heroin on the west side of Chicago in 1997. Within the first 20 minutes of the podcast Joey mentions the numerous arrests that have taken place at the Eriogonum Society's meetings due to its members' penchants for violence and street-fighting. We also discuss the first time that the Eriogonum Society was banned (for life) from Tejon Ranch for raising a gripe about their planned luxury housing development for the spiritually incompetent. 

In this episode we talk about milkweed plants that dupe kleptoparasitic flies into pollinating them, greenhouses and conservatories as bastions of ex-situ conservation, floral mimicry and bat pollination among members of the coffee family, and why customer service is a psychological experiment in human torture. 

In this episode we speak with Dr. Jason Slot, Associate Professor at Ohio State University, who is a mycologist currently studying the evolution of psilocybin production in Fungi. The last half hour of the conversation focuses largely on mycorrhizal fungi. Some fascinating stuff in this conversation. For more info or to read more about the evolution and genomics of entheogens, check out : www.entheome.org

Psilocybin Therapy, Woody tells us about Apiaceous endemics of the high desert, Damon Tighe tells us about observing fungi and insects and sexually transmitted ladybug diseases, growing oyster mushrooms on everything, and studying weordarine organisms of Lake Merritt. 

In this episode we ramble about a rare Northern California Cypress species known only from twelve populations and figure out just what the hell that spot on the map that says "Research Natural Area" means, with a bit of insight from Julie Kierstead, former Forest Service Botanist for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest who has identified 5 "new" species in Northern California which were previously unknown to science. 

A 2 hour conversation with one of the most prominent botanists of the 20th Century, Peter Raven, in anticipation of his new autobiography, Driven By Nature. 

Jeremy Spath has spent the past twenty years growing - and propagating from tissue culture - species in the genus Agave. He's traveled throughout Mexico in all kinds of habitats - from desert scrub to subtropical cloud forest - exploring the variations that evolution and environment have crafted from these botanical masterpieces of rosulate geometry. In this episode we shoot the shit about all things Agave, including habitat, tissue culture, hybridizing them, in the subtle nuance of leaf margin, leaf blade, spines, and teeth. 

Two hours of rambling conversations about Desert Brassicas, West Texas Cryptic Cacti, Dust Storms, Pollinator Poisoning via Agriculture, Al Scorch personal injury lawsuit scams, etc. 

Rants about hating Ted Cruz, Pine Forests of Hispaniola, Watching Plants Melt during the Texas Blackouts, etc

Recorded in the Dominican Republic while exploring Dogtooth Limestone Karst formations and contracting urushiol-induced atopic dermatitis, here we rant about the endemic Flora of the Dominican Republic, why Dominicans drive like maniacs and why it's  comforting. We talk high elevation neotropical cloud forests with the climate of Northern Coastal California, we talk low elevation coastal plain tree cacti and getting stung by cool endemic wasps. 

Listen to 80 minute rant on Ericoid roots and fungal symbiosis with a guest appearance by Peter Bernhardt. We also briefly talk about the germination of orchid seeds, the huge importance and understudy of the Fungal Division Glomeromycota, and why a moron would spend 4 grand to get his truck lifted. 

Michael Simpson is a Professor Emeritus of Botany who is the Author of one of the best textbooks available on the evolutionary history, grouping and Identification of plant species - Plant Systematics. 
 
Taxonomy, Evolution, & Diversity of Plants on Earth? What are phylogenetics? What is a "biogeography dungeon" and why is it fascinating as shit to be trapped inside? What causes one to go down a wormhole of obsession with the various forms that plants can take?
 

Dr. Robert Madden is a geologist and teacher based out of Perth, Western Australia. 

Rants on the wonders of plant evolution, ecotypes, speciation, and whether an awareness and fascination with such could have prevented some members of the mayonnaise militia from being radicalized. Plenty of book recommendations and other disjointed rants. 

Linda Niemann is an author, ex-railroader/brakeman and former English professor at Kennesaw State University. She is the author of the books Boomer, Railroad Voices, Railroad Noir and Cosas: Folk Art Travel in Mexico. 

Rants on Cactus Phylogeny, Teddy Bear Cholla, Neobuxbaumia Dungeons of Oaxaca, transporting plants in storage bins, over-crowded hiking/wilderness areas, how idiotic the word "natural" is, crazy cat ladies and cat colonies on ecologically-sensitive public lands, and how Great Basin National Park is declaring a war on Christmas by refusing to string lights up on Pinus longaeva, as heard through the voice of Jerry Woznowski. 

A fascinating and educational 68 minutes that breaks down the mechanisms of California's weather and where it might be headed in the future.
 

Rants about California Dystopia, Proper Seed Collection, Drought, Butano Cypress (biogeography rant), etc

A conversation with my friend the Professor and Author Dr. Peter Bernhardt about the floral morphology of many of Australia's incredible terrestrial orchids and members of the ancient angiosperm family, Proteaceae. Two hours of un-edited conversation about some the strangest plants in the Southern Hemisphere. 

A 2 hour conversation with Michael Eason about Texas Flora. Michael Eason is a botanist, author, photographer, and Texan. 

From West Texas to the Mojave the entire Southwest is in a drought in mid November of 2020 oh, but that does not stop us from doing some vegetative botany and fucking around with the wonders of the volcanic rock known as rhyolite, builder of numerous desert mountains,you prick. 

 Long disjointed rants on native plants of South Texas, plant propagation, rescuing cacti that are in the path of the proposed border wall, ppeyote gardens, indigo snakes, Etc

(Re-upload because the first file was corrupted and cut out at 3 min...) 
Probably the episode I'm most excited about so far - a talk with the kind, humble and brilliant Bruce Baldwin, an expert in the largest (second in number of species only  to the Orchid Family) and most ecologically successful plant family in the world, the Asteraceae, also known as "composites" because of their composite flowerheads, consisting of many tiny "florets" (which are the true flowers).
 
We cover a lot of stuff here, and the last five minutes of the episode seem to wrap up a potential answer to the modern human predicament that we're in. But prior to that, we of course cover the incredible ecology and evolution (and genetics!) of the most successful plant family on Planet Earth.
 
 
 
 
Photo in the thumbnail is one of the "dinosaur sunflowers", Leucheria runcinata, from the High Andes of Chile. 

2 hrs of conversation about Adaptive Radiation, Hawaiian Lobeliads, & Calochortus Evolution 

East Texas botany, Ft Worth Botanic Garden /Home Depot Garden Center, Longleaf Pine Forest, Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sleaze, Limestone Dry Prairie Endemics, Complaining about the heat, etc. 

PSA - your donations enable this here content. If you can throw a couple bucks to venmo address "societyishell", I would appreciate the hell out of it. The tank is running low at the moment and could use some re-ups. 
In this episode, CPBBD traverses 20 degrees of latitude to bring you lognwinded rants on the following topics :
-stromatolites
-banded Iron formations & the Great Oxygenation Event of the Proterozoic 
-Michigan Serpentine 
-"conservative species" and the Floristic Quality Assessment
-Silphium albiflorum
and much more. 
 
Feel free to email [email protected] with plant ID questions and reading recommendations, fuckface. 
 
 

A brief week-long trip East after fleeing the state of California (which is all on fire again) brings us into contact with a cast of prairie species and the unique nature of the Ambrosia dungeon (subtribe Ambrosiinae of the Heliantheae tribe of the Asteroideae Subfamily of the Composites) as well as some monster feral Cannabis plants, along with an exposé of the increasingly polarized and anti-intellectual, shit-for-brains nature of the modern American cultural hellscape ™.
 
 

A 90 min conversation with retired Field Museum botanist Michael Dillon about the genus Nolana and South American botany. 

A forty minute profanity-laced trade on the flux of events and garden destruction by semi-conscious contractors followed by a graceful interview concerningmmycological affairs with the wonderful Christian Schwarz. This episode more than most is filled with f-bombs so the more vanilla and easily-offended may have a hard time listening. Christian Schwarz interview starts around minute 40 for those wishing to skip the initial ranting. 

The focus today is on Darlingtonia, trolling the Flu Klux Klan, Social Justice Warriors attacking science by obsessing about racist Eugenics programs from 100 years ago, and Illegal Gardening. 

(the intro song recording quality is horrible. Skip to 2:30 rather than leave me an obnoxious comment about it Fuckface). 
Coral Pink Sand Dunes Milkweed, Southern Utah Botany, Vertic Limestones, Shitting in Kyle's Firepit.
Ten days studying the Floristics of the Colorado Plateau and Jurassic Sedimentary Rocks, we take a look at the genera of Fabaceae here including Pediomelum, Sophora, Peteria, etc. We also enjoy some time in Central Nevada with a milkweed named after renowned botanist Alice Eastwood (a botanical gangster if the ever was one) 

Rants about Cephalanthera austiniae, the phantom orchid, and disjunct populations of Opuntia fragilis. Sneaking in to the Botanic garden after hours. 
 
This podcast sponsored by Eucerin. 

90 minutes of ranting on plant propagation, metabolism, and Chiranthodendron pentadactylon from the chocolate subfamily of the Mallow Family. 

Matt Candeais is a botanist from Buffalo, New York, currently residing in Illinois and working on his PhD. He is the man behind the In Defense of Plants "podcast.

A thirty minute rant mocking the "eco-fascist" chant among science-blind social theorists and leftwing bloggers (why do fellow lefties not criticize these nitwits?), Sonoran Desert Parasites, Mojave Euphoria during a pandemic, Desert Tortoises, Orocopia Sage, etc.
 
Email [email protected] to complain or send unsolicited, un-pleasant nudes. 

Join us as we take a look at some limestone endemics of Death Valley and then Gypsum endemics of Nevada and Utah. Learn why the state of Arizona is akin to a "people of Walmart" calendar. Arctomecon humilis, Pediocactus sileri, Astragalus holmgreniorum, Diplacus rupicola, toilet humor and rants against cows.

A real nice conversation with Matt Ritter, an author and professor at California Polytechnic State University about botany, plant ecology, human society in which we also wax philosophical about a wide variety of topics and what the shit. 

An astute comparison of adaptative radiations in Asteraceae with the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Plus, Carl Zimmer kicks Mike Pence in the cock. 90 minutes of rambling with Isaac Lichter, and why coming out of the closet drives the quality of one's art and writing to hell. 

An astute comparison of adaptative radiations in Asteraceae with the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Plus, Carl Zimmer kicks Mike Pence in the cock. 90 minutes of rambling with Isaac Lichter, and why coming out of the closet drives the quality of one's art and writing to hell. 

This is the second episode on New Caledonian botany, with continued fanatic ranting on the wonders of ultramafic geology and botany as well as musings on the futility of eating jackfruit and the pondering of what Dengue Fever must feel like. 

Did I contract Dengue Fever yesterday on Moo Mountain whilst hiking to a relict population of Araucaria humboldtensis? Was New Caledonia submerged for 20 million years and then recolonized by numerous ancient lineages of plants? Will I be broke after returning from my visit here? 

A conversation with a botanical wizard, explorer, conservationist, and plant propagator, my friend the illustrious Martin Grantham. 3 hrs long but worth a listen. We explore comedic misanthropy, a brief analysis of the human condition, our behavioral affinities with violent chimps, Fern sex and how they do it, South African flora, and the idea that one does not really know plants until they've grown them. 

2 hours of pontificating on the beauty of fog deserts plus pondering how the fuck Sheriff Woody is able to hike 1,000 miles on a diet of candy and potato chips. Eriosyce recondita and cactus poachers, lomas formations, Fog islands brought to you by the Humboldt Current plus rants on shoulder surgery and the killing of street rats by Lewy. 

A conversation with an expert plant explorer in a fleabag hotel room in Arica, Chile. 

A 20 minute disjointed and profane rant followed by a 90 minute conversation with mycologist Alan Rockefeller. Oooooh how bout Dat. 

I fucked this episode up by using the wrong mic setting, so it sounds like I recorded it in the public shower stall in the Honk Kong Airport bathroom. Meh, whatever, it's still a decent rant. You'll be fine. 

Assorted ramblings on biogeography, a work ethic for Anthropocene, Irreverence for modern society, Biophilia, "Woke" Leftism vs Sociopathic right-ism, and the silly and idiotic destruction of a population of the endangered prostrata milkweed. 

Rants about why it's OK to cry, Foot Rot, Plants that smell like hell and the combination of Continental annexation to Antarctica and extremely nutrient-poor, ancient soils that have led to an exquisite species richness in the Australian Flora. 
 
For some nice reading on this subject matter, including a free textbook ON SW Australia plant diversity, check out :
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1140CFj-8oTS9PtOcnQIpVx2dg7V9I2_i

Rants on Climate Deniers, Obsolete Racist Grandfathers, El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, Foxtail Pines, the Hong Kong Airport and many more. 2.5 hours worth of profane pontifications on evolutionary biology, the human condition and bad air days. 

A long episode dedicated to rare Sumacs of West Texas, brutal heat, gypsophiles, refugial canyons in obscure mountain ranges, the phenomenon of arguing with idiots, trolls and shit-posters, and the wonders of Taquerias in South Texas. 

A gentle, sweaty meander through the Southwest in August, ending in a bath in the salsa bar at Taqueria Palenque in Beautiful Mission, Texas.

Kankakee Mallow, Chiggers, Southside Prairies and Railroad Botany... At minute 45:00 starts a long diatribe on Sonoran Sky Islands (recorded in-situ inthe camper of ye Olde shit-box truck) and the wonders of the Legume Family, with multiple appearances by herps such as Black-Tailed Rattlesnakes, a Sonoran Desert Toad (DMT exudate), Ridge-nosed Rattlesnakes and Caesalpinia pulcherrima

Geologists laughing at Earthquakes, Coyotes as Redneck Antidotes, Extinct Redwood Forests of Nevada and Oregon, Tony flowers in volcanos, Heat Stroke, Calochortus Lily Bonanza, White Sensitivity, and Rico's Tacos.

Long rants about redwood lilies, a dip into Northern California geology as cross-dissected by Interstate 5, pontificating on lunatics of the left and the right, and a finale about Prairie Botany and the encouraged destruction of the American Lawn.

Milkweed Morphology and an exploration of the passive-aggressive liberal "white voice"

Real nice and quick banger Intro to Carnivory and the Piney Woods of the North Carolina Acidic Coastal Plain, plus a cameo by the mysterious and elusive Serpentine Milkweed from Northern California Coast Ranges

A trip to Death Valley Limestone , an herbal poultice for  invasive species  long-winded rambling and the longest attempt to exit the podcast so far. 

Stinkbells Lilies,  Fritillaria agrestis, the Futility of Life in Modern Civ, Calico Monkeyflowers, etc

A trip to Pinnacles National Park, confused European tourists, the hemorrhoid of differentiating between two morphologically-identical genera of annual tarweeds, and the best goddamn taqueria in the Salinas Valley (Soledad Brother).

But for real - how could you not like The Spinners? 

A week long jaunt into the Mojave during a freakish weather event and a list of the floristic characters encountered b/w moderated profanity and the joy of being slapped around with Placidium Lichen. 

This episode contains rants about the anomaly of working-class republican-ism, molecular phylogenetics, a new population of Funeral Sage, and a relict population of Alaska Cypress

A Very Brief, Low-Brow Approach to the Sunflower Family with frequent cameos by an inopportune Yukele, with frequent digressions into Palo-Endemics, Refugia, Botanical Speciation , Disjunct Populations and Molecular Phylogenetics.