PLANT BLOG - Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

In December I flew to San Luis Potosi and spent 12 days doing vigorous field botany throughout the states of San Luis Potosi, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Mexico, Puebla, and Oaxaca.

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I found myself explaining the Urban Heat Island to a cop a few nights ago after a lady in the neighborhood called the cops on me for planting trees on city property next to her house.

In South Texas and many other tropical areas the cotton,mallow and hibiscus family - Malvaceae - is dominant.

Helietta parvifolia , also known as Beretta, is a hyper-drought tolerant member of the Citrus Family (Rutaceae) that grows in rocky areas of South Texas and Northern Mexico.

I've seen plenty of people move to the Mojave - especially during the Airbnb boom between 2017-2022 - and try to plant shitty oleander or other horticultural atrocities, and fail miserably.

Just finished a week of daily botanizing in central Florida, starting at the Southern end of the Lake Wales Ridge, a 115 mile “spine” of bleached-white “sugar sand” that was one of the only portions of land not inundated under the Atlantic ocean 2 million…

With every passing shitty social media post, deniers of invasion biology continue to become the ideological equivalent of creationists, with skulls too thick to be able to make their empathetic and compassionate versions of the world mesh with the reality…

Since moving to Deep South Texas 4 years ago I've come to realize that many plants I used to love growing in the cool mild maritime climate of the SF bay area are impossible to grow where I live.

One of the biggest tragedies of the American education system is that it teaches memorization rather than critical thinking.

Some of the only times that I feel hopeful about humanity is when I see individuals venerating and forming relationships with plants, and with specific plant species.

I was at the conservation property recently with a friend, telling her my views on marriage and how I repeatedly state, only half-joking, that marriage should be banned.

I’m excited to tend to Thornscrub like I would my own yard (I hesitate to use the word “garden”, it sounds vanilla as hell and too safe, manicured and wholesome).

Peyote has the misfortune of growing in an area of the country where an infinitesimally small portion of the dominant culture have any respect, awareness or reverence for the native plants and native plant habitat.

Ice cream bean (Inga edulis) volunteers all over disturbed areas in the neotropics.

This Orchid species depends on a single species of pollinator for its pollination.

The amount of Radiata Pine and Eucalyptus Plantation that was planted in the 1970s and 80s due to a law that subsidized and encouraged private companies to destroy native forest and plant exotics is mind-boggling here in Chile.

Thelypodiopsis shinnersii (syn.

As if this species didn't already have enough threats facing it, now Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) can add feral hogs to the list of immediate threats to its existence.

This was exciting to see, and illustrates how the epicuticular wax that reflects ultraviolet light and prevents "sunburn", especially at high temperatures when ultraviolet is the most damaging, can be regenerated directly by the epidermal tissue itself, a…