Show Notes
*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".
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More from Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't
2 hours of rants - recorded from a filthy motel room in Miami, Florida during an intermittend layover - about the route from Santa Cruz dela Sierra, Bolivia West into the dry Inter-Andean Valleys and up to the Altiplano, and the many plants encountered along the way : Onoseris acerifolia, Deuterocohnia meziana, Neoraimondia herzogiana, Schinus mollis, Puya glomerata, Schinopsis lorentzii, Cereus hankeanus, Harrisia tetracantha, Blossfeldia liliputana, Puya humilis, Trichocereus tunariensis, Trichocereus bridgesii, Zanthoxylum coco, Koeberlinia holacantha, and more.
Originally recorded June of 2026 in Los Angeles California.
In this episode we talk with Chuck Delwiche about the early evolution of land plants, photosynthetic bacteria, what Earth may have looked like 4 billion years ago, what some of the first land plants look like, why bioluminescent dinoflagellates (Pyrocystis) "light up", and the species of algae responsible for the reflecting pool disaster that nearly have the president an aneurysm over the summer.
Laiken Jordahl is the national public lands advocate for the center for biological diversity. In this episode he tells us about the destruction of Big bend National Park for a pointless and unnecessary border wall and what efforts have been made to stop it.
Rants about Taos, Garden Design in the sba to j aisle, how to tell if a plant has massive tuberous roots, Peteria scoparia, a new species of Paronychia leucochthonicola, Texas Madrone in Denver, US intervention in Latin America, and more.