Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Carlos "Aztekium" Velasco is a biologist, educator, and naturalist in Nuevo León, Mexico who has been teaching and studying the region's botany for 30+ years. He has written a guidebook to the plants of Nuevo León and helped describe new species such as Astrophytum caput-medusae.

In this episode we talk about the endemic plants of the Sierra Madre, the habitat of Huasteca Canyon, the urban river known as Rio Santa Catarina and its potential as native plant habitat, Ethnobotany of Mexican Plants, a growing appreciation of native plants in Northern Mexican culture, why the North lost so much of its Ethnobotany compared to the South, and more.

Saumitra Kelkar is a biologist and public educator In Oakland, California. This episode we talk about getting kids into nature, Bay area plant habitats, human selection of native plants and native plant cultivars, remnant edible wild gardens created by indigenous people, human-plant mutualisms, illegal gardening and more.

Ad-Free Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available on the Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

In this episode we talk about the dead fly fungus, fertilizing Trichocereus with piss, how to get a good compost heap running, the science of backyard microbes, human manure composting, cultivating oyster mushrooms, trying to find out what mycorrhizal fungus associates with Texas Madrones, and more.

Follow Damon Tighe on IG at @damontighe

Ad-Free Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available on the Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Rants about Mexican Cops, finding Arroyo Sweetwood in the wild, refugial canyons of the Sierra Madre that feel like humid forests in Georgia, and more .

Ad-Free Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available on the patreon at ww.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Ad-Free episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesnt podcast are available on the Patreon at: 
www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Rants about the Philippines, street trees of Manila, the jade vine Stronglyodon macrobotrys, the parasitic plant genus Rafflesia and its host Tetrastigma (Vitaceae), understory forest palms, old world lineages of aroids, and more.

Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

In this episode we talk Philippines Botany with Jayson Mansibang and Johnny Altomonte from Philippine Taxonomic Initiative. We talk about biogeography, Nepenthes, diversity in the genus Ficus, Dacrydium,  Begonias, Dipterocarpaceae and the genus Shorea, describing new species, ultramafic areas of the Philippines, how a childhood filled with dinosaurs got us into botany, and more.

All episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available at www.patreon.com/Crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Rants about saving the Borderlands Caper Tree, salvaging star cactus from a housing development in South Texas, mowing (and "dethatching") dead turf grass, vandalizing Nandina domestica in private landscaping, and more.

Ad-free episodes of The Crime pays but Botany doesn't podcast can be listened to on the Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

All episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't podcast are available - without obnoxious ads - on the Patreon at www.patreon.com/Crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

A conversation about California Native Plants with Jessie Dickson aka "Sacramento Food Forest" (he has no interest in permaculture). Jessie Dickson is responsible for stoking interest in native plants and ecosystems in quite a few thousand people who might not otherwise have any interest in it. In this episode we talk about fighting the Coyote Creek solar project, California redwoods, getting zoomers into botany, sobriety, the California deserts and much more.

All episodes of The Crime pays podcast are available ad free on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Brad Lancaster is a guerilla tree-planter and rainwater harvester in Tucson who has been instrumental in changing the way that the city he lives in treats rainwater and street trees. He has helped covince the city of Tucson to update its own infrastructure so as to absorb - rather than waste - rainwater by using things like curb-cuts, street-side infiltration basins and native plants. In this conversation, we learn how cities in hot, arid climates can update infrastructure and use native plants to reduce flooding, keep the landscape cooler and provide a better overall quality of life for the people that live in them. This conversation is full of hope. check out the abundance of resources and diagrams on Brad's website : www.harvestingrainwater.com and neighborhoodforesters.org

Ad-free episodes of the crime pays podcast are available on the patreon at : www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

BRAD'S WEBSITES:
HarvestingRainwater.com

CosechaDeAguaDeLluvia.com

NeighborhoodForesters.org




BRAD LANCASTER'S YouTube CHANNEL:
https://www.youtube.com/c/HarvestingRainwater


BRAD'S BOOKS (available at deep discount direct from him):
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/shop/




RAIN GARDEN PLANTING ZONES - and how to figure out what to plant where
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/resources/rain-garden-planting-zones/

Urban Drool Harvesting in Los Angeles
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/2009/03/harvesting-urban-drool/


Self-guided water tours in Tucson (in-person or virtual)
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Hydrologic redistribution of soil moisture by mesquites (there are better studies, but this is a start)
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/how-mesquite-trees-gain-a-competitive-edge-in-arid-arizona

Guerilla planting
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/2022/09/guerrilla-planting-of-rain-and-native-food-forests-vibrant-acts-of-hope-collaboration-and-letting-go/

Before and after images of water-harvesting in our neighborhood streets:
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/2022/09/before-and-after-photos-of-green-infrastructure-in-dunbar-spring-neighborhood/

Eddy basins:

All episodes of The Crime pays podcast can be listened to ad-free on the patreon : www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Ad-free episodes of the CPBBD podcast can be heard at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

In this episode we talk about South Texas Development, remnant thorn forests surrounded by McMansions, the Asphalt Heat Island, the South Texas Caper (Quadrella incana, Caper Family - Capparaceae, Mustard Order - Brassicales), grannies that hate street trees Crime Pays fan appreciation, Fighting City Hall for native scapes, general societal ignorance regarding the living world, Jack faking his own death in order to eat more hot dogs and more.

Ad-free episodes of the podcast can be enjoyed on the crime pays Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Opening song is about Jerry Falwell.

Rants about the plant life of the state of Hidalgo Mexico, including but not limited to Cephalocereus senilis, Fouquieria fasciculata, Fouquieria purpusii, Magnolia scheidiana, obsidian piles, and more. 

All episodes of The Crime Pace podcast are available for ad-free listening on the Patreon at : https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Mexico Plants Checklist : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a5GcJ39ysO_n2XbsazLZeyF9H1wDi4Zx/view?usp=drivesdk

Diversidad Floristica Oaxaca : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-EXwZV3FOd5sahIE2wlnUmqN_JcLC4bB/view?usp=drivesdk

In this episode we rant about cacti that grow in ephemeral lagoons, 1500 year old Montezuma Cypresses, cryptic cacti that grow in salty mud basins, Mexican Jays dispersing weeping pinion pine seeds, a fern that grows out of marble, how the summer-wet/winter-dry habit affects some carnivorous plant forms, and more...

Reminder that episodes of this podcast are available ad-free on the Crime Pays Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Ad-Free episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't podcast are available on the Patreon at
www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Rollie Williams is host of the youtube series "Climate Town". In this episode, we talk about "supplying demand" Capitalism, the Oil Lobby, why certain interests are just so dang good at propaganda, how the CEOs became the heroes and the scientists became the bad guys, palm oil plantations, ethanol, government-sponsored cheese caves and more.

Reed Booth and his assistant Hosh are killer bee exterminators based out of Bisbee, Arizona. In this episode we talk about the ferocity of the scutellata hybrid (aka "killer bees"), the fact that this hybrid doesn't occur in nature ANYWHERE, why most feral honeybee colonies end up being dominated or taken over by the scutellata hybrids, the reductions in native bee and plant biodiversity that the presence of both feral and domesticated honeybees results in, and why it may just not be a good idea to keep backyard honeybees anymore (at least in North America).

Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Patreon at : www.patreon.com/Crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Krystle Hickman is a biologist, native bee researcher, and conservationist from Los Angeles, California and author of the book "The ABCs of California's Native Bees". In this 2-hour conversation we talk about how to identify bees to genus, different groups of native bees (IE longhorn bees, cactus bees, leaf cutter bees, sweat bees, Euglossine bees, and more), specialist relationships between native bees and native plants, how native bees could be utilized to pollinate human crops simply if farmers created hedgerows of native plants in between their fields, how honeybees reduce native bee species diversity as well as reducing fitness in native plants, how to get good macro photos and more.

A 2 hour conversation with Alexis Nicole Nelson aka Black Forager about connecting with the living world, ethnobotany, lawn-killing, native plants, hopefulness and humility, using native plants for fibers, and a sh*t ton more.

Full episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast can be listened to ad-free on the Patreon at:
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Cyrus Harp is an ethnobotanist, ethnobiologist and author based out of Cetral Texas. In this episode we talk about a number of different plant species, chipping chert, using Agave & Yucca for fiber, Agarita (Berberis trifoliolata) as dye, Mescal Beans and the history of pre-European human settlement and botany in Texas.

 Ethan Tapper is a forester, author and ecologist out of Vermont, USA. He advocates for a practice called "Ecological Forestry", as opposed to the short-term-gain/long-term-loss management style that has seemingly dominated the lumber industry for decades (centuries). He is the author of a book called "How to Love a Forest", released on Broadleaf Press in September 2024. In this conversation we talk about the Northeast Woodlands, how climate change is affecting tick populations, and how changing the focus from "how to extract as much as possible" to instead "how to steward a living machine (an ecosystem) for the system's own health" means greater benefits in the long run.

All episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available without ads on the patreon at : www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

*Rants about the fire-dependent sand scrub of Central Florida, some of the rarest, most unique and underappreciated plants of the world. The plant community here occurs in nutrient-poor, fire dependent sands that were the beachfront 2 million years ago. These plants evolved in a region that gets upwards of 60 in of rain of year but has a pronounced dry season between November and May. 

Even more astonishing is that so many of these plants are under immediate threat of extinction due to fire suppression, land clearance and an orgy of development tied to political corruption and the coziness with which Florida developers court the politicians. The end rant consists of a ten minute assault on the city of Orlando, also known as "Satan's Anus".

Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Crime Pays patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

A live show originally recorded at The Hideout in Chicago on September 13th 2025. First 4 minutes got cut off accidentally by the sound guy, who otherwise did a great job (the sd card f*cked up, it wasn't his fault). On that note, I mistakenly refer to Artemisia ludoviciana when I meant Artemisia vulgaris. 

full episodes of this podcast are available ad free on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Rants about KILL YOUR LAWN tour in the Midwest, River Geography, Hemp Farms in Wisconsin, Prairies, Bison, upset affluent suburban ladies in St Paul, horticultural atrocities, Lincoln vs Omaha Nebraska, Feral Paht and more.

Thanks to the all the venues that put us up and thanks to everyone who came out for the shows/presentations in Milwaukee, St Paul, Omaha, Lincoln, Kansas City, Omaha, Lincoln and the Quad Cities.

As Always, Ad-Free Episodes of the podcast are available on the Patrol for 5 bucks a month at : https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Patreon at www.patreon/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Why is there such a strong correlation between invasion biology denial, anthropocentrism, ecological illiteracy and permaculture? How can permaculture move forward while at the same time acknowledging the functionality of native plant ecosystems and why the designation of "native" is not some frivolous, arbitrary, or puritanical designation? In this 40 minute conversation between myself and Lilly Anderson-Messec we talk about what permaculture is, its focus on functionality (to humans) and why there tends to be such a predictable link between those who espouse staunch invasion biology denial and their holistic integrative biodynamic permaculture food forest.

In this episode (after a 30 minute societal rant) we talk about Dioon edule and cycads of the foothills of the Sierra Madre, why hemiparasitic members of the paintbrush family frequently have red leaves, Mexican Oak Diversity, Tillandsia usneoides in Oak woodlands, Calochortus marcellae, Malacomeles denticulata ecotypes, why Crotalus morulus (Tamaulipan Rock Rattlesnake) possibly one of the coolest members of the genus

Ad-Free Episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available on the Patreon at : 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt


 FLORA OF NUEVO LEON CHECKLIST PDF : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ukTNSvThl65KUlKpm0wLzUTRklvZiBc_/view?usp=drive_link

CONCRETE BOTANY (Out April 2026) PRE-ORDER : 
https://geni.us/ConcreteBotany

This episode is a conversation with Adam Haritan from the youtube channel Learn Your Land, which covres a diverse variety of topics related to the ecology of Eastern North American Forests - Fungi, Plants, Insects, & more. In this episode we talk about how fire suppression has caused an explosion in tick populations, along with a multitude of other factors. We also discuss medicinal mushrooms of Eastern North America, surviving stands of American Chestnuts, the importance of geology, and how Paw Paw trees might be neurotoxic. We also talk about how humans having a connection to (and knowledge of) the land that they live on is a matter of existential health, almost more so than anything else. 

Adam's been producing the Learn Your Land youtube channel for ten years and has an extensive library of videos about a diversity of topics, and unlike me, he doesn't curse like a madman so his videos are appropriate for all ages. Please check the youtube (especially the tick episode!) and go down a wormhole. Also check out www.learnyourland.com for more info on what he does, a link to his onlince courses, and a list of the videos he's done.

All episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesnt podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at :
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Ad-Free episodes of the CPBBD podcast are available on the patreon at 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Today's episode consists of rants about compensation point, idiotic spelling mistakes, C3 and C4 photosynthesis, why nighttime temperatures prevent growing some plants in some areas, public land grab in Florida by sleazebag developers embedded in state government, Kill Your Lawn Tour 2025,  calcareous shale exposures of Pueblo County, Colorado.

Rants about Green Tea, Lactose Intolerance, mycoheterotrophic plants in New Mexico, Colorado Springs Shale Exposures, Native Plant Takeovers of municipal landscaping greenhouses, Rock Sage, 300 million year old limestone, and more.

Ad-Free Episodes of the podcast are available for 5 bucks a month on the patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

To pre-order the book Concrete Botany, visit https://geni.us/ConcreteBotany

Disjointed Rants about New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains, Mormons, the origins of Ivermectin, Rat-Trap Pitcher plants and Nepenthes hybrids, and more.

All episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available ad-free on the crime pays patreon at : 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

For merch, bonfire store is at : 
https://www.bonfire.com/store/crime-pays-but-botany-doesnt/

In this episode we rant about Neotropical High-elevation Oak forests of Central America, what the hell introgression is (swapping genes between two species through hybridization and back-crossing to potentially create a new species, though sometimes it just introduces adaptive traits into existing species), the checking of a racist Becky into a bush by a fed-up member of the populace, the neotropical parasitic plant Corynaea crass and how its monoecious and what that means, cloud forests extravaganzas with Solandra brachycalyx (Solanaceae), and more. 

To listen without any annoying ads (and IHEARTRADIO -our podcast hosting service - really lays the annoying ads on thick), check out the crimepays patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt. To order stickers of CPBBD artwork visit : https://www.crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com/storestickersprints

Rants about Davis Mountains fungi, Ponderosa Pine Death from drought, torrential Texas rains, West Texas alcoholics, Mandevilla hypoleuca, Echeveria strictiflora, Growing Madrones, American Smoke Trees in Austin, Madrones in San Antonio, Dystopia and more....

Rants about Northern New Mexico, Gypsum endemics, Dwarf Milkweed, the Horseshoe Bend Motel Photo, Botany of Horseshoe Bend, Pediocactus in the high desert of Northern Arizona, Why telling people that eating Saguaro fruits isn't as bad as Caucasian liberals might want you to think is, How anthropocentric uses of plants might hook some people into the larger perspective of botany and ecology and reverence for the living world, and more. 

Episodes of the podcast are available for listening, ad-free, on the crime pays Patreon.

Rants about colonoscopies, plant life on the sandhills East of Carlsbad New Mexico, Eurytaenia hinckleyi (Apiaceae ), Pomaria jamesii (Fabaceae), the Sierra Madre and more

Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Patreon for $5 a month at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Rants about permaculture, holistic livestock snake oil, Southern New Mexico gypsum flats, the Guadalupe Mountains, the Schizandra population in Atlanta that's being overtaken by english ivy, the Alex Jones with boobs meme, naked old men at Nevada hot springs, and more.

All episodes of this podcast are available for $5 a month ad-free on the crime pays patreon stop whining about the ads you jadrool bastard.

Ad-Free versions of this podcast are available for $5 a month on the Crime Pays Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

In this episode we talk with Makenzie Mabry, PhD, about the order Brassicales and all the cool and bizarre plants and plant families within it. We talk about the trend of polyploidy, whole genome duplication, the affinity for deserts and arid habitats, the evolution of succulents and the particular phytochemistry known as glucosinolates. 

We start off talking about the octopus plant that was recently discovered in 2020 in the salt pan deserts of Namibia, Tiganophyton karasense, and go through the entire phylogeny of the order, talking about little known families from disparate parts of the globe and why so many families only contain one species. 

In this episode we talk about the granite/gneiss knobs that surround the Atlanta, Georgia area and the cool plants that grow there, getting unintentionally shot at by morons at Arabia mountain, exploring limestone glades of Alabama with Kyle Lybarger, how much puke would it take to reach the confederate statue on the side of Stone Mountain if one were puking down from above, how important fire is to East Coast and Southeast ecosystems (especially for suppressing tick populations) and a ton more. 

If you're annoyed by the ads, stop complaining and sign up for the Crime Pays Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Plants mentioned in this podcast: 

Schoenolirion croceum 
Cotinus obovatus 
Packera dubia 
Polymnia laevigata 
Diamorpha smallii 
Tradescantia hirsuticaulis 
Ribes curvatum 
Chionanthus virginicum
Kalmia latifolia 
Neviusia alabamensis 

A 2 hour, unhinged livestream rant about ecological succession in lawn slaughter, book reviews, the deranged texas anti-plant bill (SB 1868), and more, all done while wearing a priest outfit.

Episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available Ad-Free on the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't Patreon at: www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

In this episode of the podcast we rant about a myriad of topics and also discuss 4 main habitat types of Costa Rica : 

Lowland dry forest, where you can get pissed on by spider monkeys and capuchins while photographing columnar cacti growing on karstic limestone dominated by Bursera simaruba. We also talk about the dry forest oak Quercus oleoides which tolerates a 6 month long dry season and doesn't even receive that much rain during the wet season since it tends to grow on thin-soiled limestone.

Montane Wet Forest dominated by oaks like Quercus insignis, which produces acorns the size of baseballs and grows with epiphytic orchids and bat pollinated Bromeliads.

Cloud Forest dominated by ectomycorrhizal trees such Quercus costricensis and Comarostaphylis arbutoides (Ericaceae), a kind of habitat which also contains tropical variations of plant genera that are generally more associated with temperate latitudes. 

Páramo habitat, where it's summer every day and winter every night due to the thin air at high elevations above 10,000' (3300 m) and plants produce layerings of hairs not to protect against drought but to protect against frost and increased Ultraviolet intensity. 

Rants about Mosquito Traps, Burrowing "toads" (Rhinophrynus dorsalis), Texas botanists' resistance to using scientific names, replacing windas, a new species of succulent bamboo from Laos, and more 

I recommend the hell outta the Biogents Mosquito Trap, which is a pleasant way to reduce mosquito populations in your area using a compound that mimics the smell of human sweat, attracting mosquitos, then sucking the little bastards into the netting. The netting can then be frozen for 20 minutes which kills the mosquitoes, then the mosquitos dumped out onto a sheet of paper and fed to your carnivorous plants (Dionaea, Pinguicula, Drosera, etc). For 20% off the trap use code botany20 at www.biogents.com

Podcast are available on the Patreon for a measly five bucks a month, so quit your whinin about the awful ads (as if you don't have fingers you can use to press buttons to skip through them) and sign up, where you'll have access to see early screenings of videos, photo dumps of rare plants, free literature, educational PDFs and more at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Dr. Michael Powell is the curator of the Sul Ross Herbarium in Alpine, Texas and a proverbial wizard of West Texas Botany and Plants of the Trans-Pecos. In this episode we discuss 
how the endangered species act influenced the wariness of Texas ranchers and land owners, the current drought that Texas is in, describing new species of plants, the rock-daisies and cliff-dwellers of the Perityle clade (Asteraceae), limestone endemism among Texas plants, how to propagate Texas Madrones, how chromosome-counting was done using immature buds before the advent of PCR, propagating rare native plants of the Trans Pecos, botanizing Mexico in the 1960s and 70s, gypsophile plants, and how a single teacher inspired him to ditch baseball for Botany in the early 1960s.

Episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon.

Deb Manley is a naturalist and long-distance hiker who in March 2024 discovered a plant species that was entirely new to science: Ovicula biradiata (Sunflower Family - Asteraceae).

In this episode of Crime Pays we talk about the discovery, the unique flora of the Big Bend region, limestone deserts, the phenomenon of Sky Islands and more.

Episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon, where your membership helps support free botany education, filming, lawn-killing, native plant awareness and land preservation.

Episodes of this podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at :
www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Dr. Lynn Clark studies neotropical bamboos - bamboos from the Americas - specifically the genus Chusquea, which is highly diverse in Central & South America, from the Pine-Oak Forests of Western Mexico all the way down to the temperate rainforests of Southern Chile. In this episode we talk about Chusquea, why it takes 30 years for some species to flower, why the woody bamboos are monocarpic (they flower once and then die, like Agave), how it can take decades for a clonal stand of Chusquea to flower, what the hell "gregarious monocarpy" is, how a stand of individuals "know" when to all flower at the same time, and more. 

We also talk about the enormous bamboo species Guadua angustifolia, which can reach heights of 30 meters (90 feet), forms massive stands in the upper Amazon, and creates its own canopy ecosytem much like a redwood tree does. 

Later in the podcast we discuss the 4 species of bamboo native to the United States, the genus Arundinaria , and how a dispersal event from Asia 25 million years ago may have originally introduced bamboos to the Americas.

Vocab words from this episode : 

Arm Cells : the leaf blades of bamboos possess arm cells in the mesophyll, a character trait that sets them apart from grasses.  


Gregarious Flowering or Gregarious Monocarpy : synchronous flowering. extremely cool and mysterious stuff.

Buergersiochloa bambusoides - New Guinea Disjunct

Raddiella vanessae - the world's smallest bamboo species

icneumonid wasps - wasps that have an ovipositor that is able to penetrate the hard culms of the giant Amazonian bamboo Guadua angustifolia

The strucutre and morphology of the buds at the nodes of bamboo are highly diagnostic for bamboos identification!

Chusquea from Western Mexico : Chusquea septentrionalis

Link to Guadua angustifolia video : 
https://youtu.be/7v6nmIatSx0

Bruce Shoemaker is a researcher on natural resource conflicts and
author of the book "Dead in the Water", about hydropower projects and extractive predatory capitalism in Southeast Asia.

In this podcast we talk about turning monoculturres of pine plantations back into biodiverse forest in Northern California, the importance of fire in Northern California forests, as well as the completely disparate topic of forest clearance and exploitation in Southeast Asia, the family Dipterocarpaceae, 
the removal of the dams on the Klamath River in California, and more.

In this episode we talk about why the word "nature" sucks; how to use the living world to avoid focusing on doom and idiocracy; why aimlessly walking along power line easements, irrigation ditches and railroad tracks in order to look at "weeds" is good for your health; an Australian orchid (Rhizanthella gardneri) that doesn't photosynthesize and blooms underground, a Vanilla species (Vanilla barbellata) that grow in cactus forests; whether pollen grains are analogous to nut-sacks or sperm; why the Australian Acacias have flowers that don't produce nectar, and more. the last  90 minutes are a conversation with my friend the pollination biologist and author Dr. Peter Bernhardt.



Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon so please join it instead of complaining here about the ads : https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Ad-Free episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't Podcast are available on the patreon at :
https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

In this episode we talk with Leo Mercado of Morningstar Conservancy, an Arizona-based peyote conservation and propagation organization formed by members of the Native American Church concerned with the increasingly diminishing wild popuations of Peyote, a cactus species native to South Texas and Northern Mexico.  We talk about the dwindling supplies of the plant available to members of the Native American Church (NAC) due to human threats to peyote's existence in Texas such as land clearance, feral pigs, invasive grasses (like buffel grass) and habitat loss.

We also explore why some members of the NAC want to keep peyote illegal as a means of "protecting" the species from use by outsiders. A well-intentioned stance that may actually further imperil wild populations of this plant due to the extent in which it makes propagation and habitat restoration, and salvaging peyote plants from land clearance for things like solar fields or the border wall impossible, even by those individuals that are Native American and permitted to use peyote in religious ceremony.


To learn more about the Sacramental Sponsorship Program or Morningstar Conservancy, 
visit www.morningstarconservancy.org

Sacramental Sponsorship Program (only available to NAC members with tribal cards : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Py8_vn9dHh7hGaZRKdwrsdXAtkfw0uGF/view?usp=drive_link

Rants about museums in Chicago, the hall of botany at the field museum, drop-in sinks, Euglossine bees, the genus Gnetum, getting the cops called on you at Chicago Botanical Gardens, the library at said institution, and more.

Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available for Ad-Free listening on the Patreon.

Episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at : https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Rants about the New Asteraceae species discovered at Big Bend National Park, Ovicula biradiata, as well as an exploration of a few species of Neotropical Palms, potential musical choices for waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay and Divine Retribution against America in the form of audible torture, vandalizing crepe myrtles and Bradford Pears, and a thirty minute exposé on Beetle Pollination in the Panama Hat Family, Cyclanthaceae.