Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

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/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesntJared 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/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesntThis 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.