Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

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.