Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

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, t...

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 clad...

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...

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 t...

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 disparat...

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 ba...

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,...

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 for...

A 2 hour rant about the upper Amazon, the Paramo, ant symbiosis, Ilex guayusa , ethnobotany at the fruit market, giant neotropical bamboos, and much more.  Ad-free episodes of the podcast are available on the Crime Pays Patreon at : https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt Thumbnail is a photograph of Miconia inobsepta and its swollen petioles acting as ant domatia.

A conversation with mycologist Alan Rockefeller about fungal and plant biodiversity of the upper Amazon of Ecuador. Episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available Ad-Free on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Miguel Moya is a naturalist and designer who produces field guides and posters for native plants in Chile. In this episode we talk about the sclerophyll forest, the temperate rainforests of Chile Island, indigenous communities in the Southern region, Araucaria forests, Gomortega kuele, Ancient Gondwanan disjunctions, Citronella mucronata, rare plants of the Santiago area and more. Ad-Free episodes...

In this episode we talk about Alerce Forests, Ocelot Tarantulas that live in bogs in Temperate Rainforests, Why the Rosulate Form Makes sense in Alpine Habitats, and the extremely weird mycoheterotroph, Arachnitis uniflora. Ad-Free episodes of this podcast can be listened to on the Crime Pays Patreon at : www.patreon.com/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Rants about the Araucaria forests of Nahuelbuta and Conguillo, Chile : Towering, 1200 year-old Araucaria araucana trees with an understory of Nothofagus pumilio, dombeyi and obliqua; thigmonastic, moving stamens in Loasa acanthifolia; Chusquea and new world bamboos; Mutisioid composites, biogeographyband plant distributions that are a result of both Gondwanan Breakup and amphitropical bird migrati...

Nico Lavandero is a Chilean Botanist who has described 8 new species of plants in Chile and is in the proc of describing many more. In this podcast we talk about a diversity of subjects, from Chile's 1974 Forest Law that incentivized the destruction of native forest for pine plantations, why plants take on dwarfed rosulate growth forms at high altitude in the Andes, Alerce forests, a growing aware...

Austin Miller runs Birdsong Landscapes, a native plant landscaping company and Natural History page based out of Southwest Ohio. In this episode we talk about continents as ecosystems, the natural history of Ohio, the Hopewell Culture and the Eastern Agirculture Complex, injecting native plant awareness into popular culture, lawn-killing, freshwater mussel diversity in Eastern North American river...

For some background on the developing story of creating a blight-resistant American chestnut, please check out the podcast episode a few episodes back with Erik Carlson. Jared Westbrook is a geneticist with the American Chestnut Foundation. In this episode we talk about what went wrong with the initial round of trials for blight-resistant chestnuts, how to combine targeted genetic approaches to hy...

In this episode we sit down with Kyle Elmore of the youtube channel @popmilk for a two hour talk about herping (lurking for reptiles and amphibians), creating habitat, passionately obsessing over milksnakes, why Indigo Snakes are so chill, self-education, embracing the living world as a side-hobby, coping with habitat loss, naming milk snakes,, the glory of tin, getting bit by copperheads, being a...

Rants about ruining Christmas, disappointed family members, mixing and making soil recipes, Thornscrub Sanctuary update, maintaining a positive outlook despite the spiritually-poisonous effervescent fart of modern consumer society, feral pigs, ruderal plants, and more.  Before you whine about the ads, keep in mind all episodes of the podcast are available Ad-Free on the Crime Pays Patreon.

In this episode we talk with Crime Pays Field Correspondent WIll Doran about his traumatic experiences in the Car and Retail Slums of the American Sunbelt, possibly one of the ugliest and most soul-crushing landscapes in the first world. This is a landscape that exists as pure "anti-culture", and as many of you may know, is the only kind of landscape and infrastructure option offered to many peopl...

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, s...

Here's your reminder that all episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available ad-free (because ads are the equivalent of cold sores) on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt. 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...

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...

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 cont...

If the terrible Ads are bumming you out, then episodes are available on the Patreon Ad-Free at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt 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?u...