1 00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:05,559 Hello, and welcome to another episode of A crimepace A body doesn't podcasts. 2 00:00:05,559 --> 00:00:11,839 This is a continuation from the one we did yesterday exploring habitats in Correcto and 3 00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:16,719 Guanajuato. How do you say that, Guana Jiuato? What is that? 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:20,160 I don't understand? Well, how do you pronounce that? Guanajuado State, 5 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:25,440 Mexico credo and Guanaguado State. So when I last, when I left you, 6 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:28,000 if you listened to the last episode, if you actually made it through 7 00:00:28,039 --> 00:00:30,839 a hour and forty minutes of it, which if you didn't, I don't 8 00:00:30,839 --> 00:00:34,920 blame you. We were on top of this mountain at ten thy five hundred 9 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:40,719 feet with Nolina parviflora, this big collescent yucca looking thing almost looks like one 10 00:00:40,759 --> 00:00:44,560 of those coalscon dasiliriums we say called lesson. We just mean it's got a 11 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:48,039 stem, it's got a big fucking trunk. Looks like Nolina palmer which you 12 00:00:48,079 --> 00:00:52,320 see in the Kingston Range of the Mojave Desert, which is sem epic habitat, 13 00:00:53,439 --> 00:00:59,479 I should say. And we were surrounded by just a little bit, 14 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,760 you know, one hundred two hundred feet down below that on this entire mountain 15 00:01:03,799 --> 00:01:08,359 made of marble. We were surrounded by a gave Salmiana subspecies Crassus spina, 16 00:01:08,439 --> 00:01:11,719 which is, you know, it's in a gave with like an eleven foot 17 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:19,159 diameter rosette leaf rosette. I mean this is a huge species. I mean 18 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:21,920 it's a It's a very variable species too. I think there's like three different 19 00:01:21,959 --> 00:01:29,239 subspecies. It's one of the most commonly used gaves for tequila and mezcal production 20 00:01:29,719 --> 00:01:33,760 because it produces such a giant heart, you know, just the center of 21 00:01:33,799 --> 00:01:38,599 that. The plant basically looks like a giant pineapple when you cut the leaves 22 00:01:38,599 --> 00:01:42,239 off. Once went to an agave distillery and Wahaka just because it was part 23 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:49,000 of this tour. I'd been botanizing and looking at mushrooms with Allen one year 24 00:01:49,239 --> 00:01:52,480 in Wahaka and they dropped me off. I still had a day to kill, 25 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,640 so I wanted some thinking, like, you know, fucking twelve dollars 26 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:57,159 tour, even though I don't drink. And at the end of it, 27 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,359 they went to a bunch of At the end, they took us to this 28 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:07,719 a gave distillery and god, it was fucking cool to see. It was 29 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:09,080 like, you know, everyone was getting hammered and shit whatever. It was 30 00:02:09,159 --> 00:02:15,080 kind of ob noxious. Booze makes people extremely annoying. But what was cool 31 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:20,800 was that just from an ethnic botanical perspective, it was cool to see how 32 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,360 a gave's or how a tequila is made, and how a gave has ground 33 00:02:23,439 --> 00:02:27,560 up the whole process. They dig this big ass earthen pit. Looks like 34 00:02:27,599 --> 00:02:30,840 a super large jacuzzi. You know, you could fit like twenty people in 35 00:02:30,879 --> 00:02:35,120 there, but it's kind of like a cone shaped pit. They roast some 36 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:38,400 charcoal in there. Probably takes them a couple of days to roast this shit 37 00:02:38,479 --> 00:02:44,319 down, get it nice and piping hot. Throw these huge, basically what 38 00:02:44,479 --> 00:02:47,560 looked like fifty pound pineapples, which are the hearts of these at gaves that 39 00:02:47,599 --> 00:02:53,240 they've cut the leaf blades off of, and they throw them into this pit 40 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:59,800 and roast them slowly in an earthen pit. And god, they're using like 41 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:02,479 access to chop these things up afterwards. I think they chop them up, 42 00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:07,759 but they use access to chop these things up, and then they put them 43 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:13,159 on this matate it's like a giant stone disc and a fucking donkey pulls this 44 00:03:13,759 --> 00:03:19,919 rolling wheel. If the wheel's attached to a wooden lag a pole, and 45 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,719 the donkey walks and circles around it. You know, it's kinda be hard 46 00:03:22,719 --> 00:03:24,840 for the donkey. Hopefully they're paying him good. Hopefully they're compensating him. 47 00:03:24,879 --> 00:03:29,680 That's gonna take a lot of carrots, sir, Okay, we're gonna get 48 00:03:29,719 --> 00:03:34,360 fucking rock. I'll call we'll call it the labor relations Bore. I'll get 49 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:38,080 everybody down here. Make sure the donkey's getting paid. I hope he's a 50 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:40,560 happy donkey anyway, and he gets ample time off. Anyway, This donkey 51 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:46,159 pulls his fucking stone wheel, crushes the shit out of this And I was 52 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,360 smelling this stuff. It smells incredible. They roast it because that breaks the 53 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:52,639 sugar down, of course, which then makes it easier to turn into a 54 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,000 liquor. You know, so you can get hammered and not deal with your 55 00:03:55,039 --> 00:04:00,719 feelings and become a little bit dumber with every passing hangover you accumulate over your 56 00:04:00,759 --> 00:04:04,479 life, and you know, not pay attention to the things and thoughts you 57 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:08,919 should be feeling. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We know alcohol's 58 00:04:08,919 --> 00:04:15,360 harmless anyway, and so this donkey pulls this wooden there, this this wooden 59 00:04:15,399 --> 00:04:19,399 pole which is attached to this grindings this large heavy wheel which you know, 60 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:23,839 juices the shit up. And I took a bite out of one of these 61 00:04:23,839 --> 00:04:26,040 because I was looking at it and this guy saw it and he was like, 62 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:29,160 he's like come, you know, he's like eat it. And I 63 00:04:29,199 --> 00:04:31,600 took a bite out of this chunk of a gave and it was the sweetest 64 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:34,600 thing I've ever tasted my life, Like sickeningly sweet almost. I got a 65 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:39,800 headache within like thirty seconds of consuming this thing from the sugar rush, you 66 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:41,920 know, because I found out by the twenty three and me thing, I 67 00:04:41,959 --> 00:04:44,800 got that diabetes gene. So I got to be watching it stuff and I 68 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,399 can't ever stop exercising because then the diabetes will come on. Next thing, 69 00:04:47,439 --> 00:04:51,319 you know, they're sawing off toes, you know, the fucking the moonlight 70 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:57,800 Man's coming from my toes. So anyway, but it was delicious and it 71 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:00,519 had this smoky flavor to it, and it was then I realized, oh, 72 00:05:00,519 --> 00:05:02,120 wow, that makes sense, that's why they use agaves. And I've 73 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:04,920 talked about this in this podcast before, so forgive me if you've listened to 74 00:05:04,959 --> 00:05:08,079 that episode. I think it was like a year or two ago. But 75 00:05:08,519 --> 00:05:12,800 that's why they use gaves, and especially these large species, because they're just 76 00:05:12,839 --> 00:05:17,120 basically solar panels that cook up carbohydrates and sugar over a span of twenty to 77 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:20,920 thirty years, which is about the length that some of them live for, 78 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:27,800 and then they use that huge store of sugar to send up this thirty foot 79 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:31,639 tall inflorescence, this flower spike, which just you know, is like a 80 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:34,720 fucking buffet for pollinators for upwards of a month or two. I mean, 81 00:05:34,759 --> 00:05:42,040 it's so these things are so important ecologically, and their strategy is so important. 82 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,680 You know, their strategy is basically dependent on just flowering once and then 83 00:05:46,759 --> 00:05:50,079 dying and they just they boom, They just give it this big burst and 84 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:55,480 it's the fucking talk of the town among the local insects and birds and bats 85 00:05:55,519 --> 00:06:00,240 and whatever. And that ensures that it gets pollinated and it produces tons thousands 86 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:05,399 of seeds, like one of these agave samianas has to produce thousands of seeds 87 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:10,920 easily, easily, and they're those little black, flaky seeds that have fhitomelon 88 00:06:11,079 --> 00:06:14,720 in them. They're black, you know, like a lot of members of 89 00:06:14,759 --> 00:06:21,480 asparagales the order, whether it's yuccas or fucking amaryllids or onions or whatever, 90 00:06:21,519 --> 00:06:26,199 they produce those little black flaky seeds. Think orchids are the only ones in 91 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,920 that order that don't orchids maybe something else. Anyway, The point is it 92 00:06:29,959 --> 00:06:32,319 works for them. But because it's such a huge inflorescence, and because it's 93 00:06:32,319 --> 00:06:36,639 taken them thirty years to cook up the energy photosynthesize the energy to do this, 94 00:06:36,759 --> 00:06:41,920 they die shortly after. And so that's why gaves are monocarpic. But 95 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:45,920 again, some of them have evolved the ability to produce offsets. Such a 96 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:50,120 fucking fantastic genus and it was so cool to see these monster bastards that were 97 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:56,639 just these beautiful monster fucking I mean, I'm still high, just off the 98 00:06:56,680 --> 00:07:00,199 dopamine from being in these habitats. This was such a fun, fucking incredible 99 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:08,560 habitat Qurcus crassifolia. I think Carcus crassipes was no Corcus polyanthos. Maybe let 100 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:13,600 me look that one up. Excuse me, sorry, Qurcus potasina, No, 101 00:07:13,759 --> 00:07:15,800 maybe that was at a different spot. Anyway, I saw a lot 102 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:19,000 of fucking carcus, and you know, Mexico's the epicenter of oak diversity. 103 00:07:19,079 --> 00:07:24,879 You've got this wide range of elevations between three thousand feet. Though I don't 104 00:07:24,879 --> 00:07:29,439 think any oaks grow that low, except for maybe a handful. I think 105 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:32,399 Corcus brandigii and Baja and a few others. Anyway, most of them grow. 106 00:07:32,439 --> 00:07:36,519 Most of Central Mexico is at five thousand feet or above. You're talking. 107 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:42,240 If you're at four thousand feet in Central Mexico at twenty degrees latitude, 108 00:07:42,279 --> 00:07:46,759 you are fucking cooking, which is what was going on at the Strombocactus spot, 109 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:54,120 which I'll talk about later in this podcast. But anyway, this it 110 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,199 was this oaks. It was that astro Lipus species which I just talked to 111 00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:03,519 doctor Michael Wyndham, who's the wizard of Kylan Tooiti, the really cool desert 112 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:07,639 fern family of the xerch fern family subfamily kyl A toiti, which is in 113 00:08:07,879 --> 00:08:13,800 Putero deace, the family Pitterodacey, which is known for that pseudo dusium that 114 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:16,839 folded over a leaf margin that they get on their pinna, which are just 115 00:08:16,879 --> 00:08:20,920 the little leaflets. And you know, he was on the podcast a year 116 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,279 or two ago talking about Duke. He works at Duke. Him and his 117 00:08:22,319 --> 00:08:26,360 wife, they're like power couple. They work at Duke. We had him 118 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,920 on, we were talking about the herbarium closing, and then I did another 119 00:08:28,959 --> 00:08:33,480 podcast with him about Kylan Todier. I reached out to him because this astrolepist 120 00:08:33,519 --> 00:08:37,919 that I was talking about last episode of the podcast blew my mind so fucking 121 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:46,000 hard. It was just this god, this incredibly tomentose silvery, just gorgeous 122 00:08:46,039 --> 00:08:48,519 fern growing out of marble, like the fucking marble is so you know, 123 00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:52,960 the whole the town down below, I mentioned this too. Their economy was 124 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:58,559 based on marble, on elmar Mole. There were marble shops all throughout the 125 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:01,200 town. They had a big boulder, the sokol Ode, a central square 126 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,360 that was the size of a fucking Volkswagen bug that was made out of marble. 127 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:11,639 Beautiful town, like so many in these little towns in Mexico, and 128 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,320 the marble cobbles on the street were all polished from cars driving over them. 129 00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:18,320 I mean, marble is central this town. Marble, of course, is 130 00:09:18,399 --> 00:09:22,320 just cooked limestone. It's metamorphosed limestone. Okay, you change the crystal structure 131 00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:30,639 when you subject sedimentary rock, whether it's sandstone or mudstone or limestone and subjected 132 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:33,600 to heat and pressure. When you cook it, it's more like a pressure 133 00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:37,840 cooker because there's pressure too. Now I'm not sure what cooked the rock in 134 00:09:37,919 --> 00:09:41,840 this area. Look cooked the limestone in this area. Most of Mexico has 135 00:09:41,919 --> 00:09:46,960 limestone. A lot of Mexico's limestone's either limestone or volcanic, or some really 136 00:09:46,039 --> 00:09:52,000 cool areas where you get metamorphic rocks. And those are the three major rock 137 00:09:52,039 --> 00:09:54,919 types that that makes sense. But lots of volcanism. You got the trans 138 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:58,919 Mexican volcanic belt down there, caused by the Cocos Plate, the Oceanic Plate 139 00:10:00,159 --> 00:10:03,080 to the southwest, it's subducting beneath the North American Plate. Where you get 140 00:10:03,080 --> 00:10:07,840 it subduction zone, you of course get volcanism one hundred miles inland, fifty 141 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,039 miles inland, whatever. That's what story. What's going on with the Andes 142 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,559 too, with the Nasca Plate, and it was what was what's going on 143 00:10:13,639 --> 00:10:18,360 with the Cascade volcanoes and the Wanda Fuca Plate. So you get the Cocoas 144 00:10:18,399 --> 00:10:24,320 Plate going beneath Mexico, subducting beneath the Mexico causing all this volcanism. The 145 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:28,799 volcanism is generally younger, last thirty forty million years, maybe not even forty 146 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:31,279 million years. The limestone is all older. It's all Cretaceous, which is 147 00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:37,559 roughly one twenty five to sixty six million years ago. Sixty six million years 148 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:43,159 ago is when a dinosaurs went out one at fateful day when ed Ukutan Peninsula 149 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:50,240 got slammed into by the big space rack rip and both the ammonites and the 150 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:54,600 ammonites and the dinosaurs were taken out, and probably a number of really cool 151 00:10:54,639 --> 00:11:01,000 conifer lineages too, which then later made way for the way of angiosperms to 152 00:11:01,159 --> 00:11:05,840 thrive and do their thing and get I mean, angil sperms had already evolved 153 00:11:05,879 --> 00:11:09,320 sixty million years earlier, but now it was really time for them to fucking 154 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:13,200 shine. They took over, and the forest composition changed in much of South 155 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,360 America. All that is aside, though, and that doesn't have to do 156 00:11:16,399 --> 00:11:20,919 with what we're talking about on this beautiful marble mountain here in Carretoro, Mexico, 157 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:24,159 where we saw this Astro libas species, and back to the Astra libis, 158 00:11:24,360 --> 00:11:28,679 I sent pictures and you know, when I go out and take photos 159 00:11:28,679 --> 00:11:31,120 of a plant, I take ten fucking photos. I used to only do 160 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:33,399 two or three. Then I had a really you know, intense mushroom trip 161 00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:37,639 maybe was six years ago, and I caught myself taking fifty photos of the 162 00:11:37,639 --> 00:11:41,799 same fucking thing, and I was forever changed. Just kidding, I mean, 163 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:43,960 I really was on mushrooms. But I don't think it was that that 164 00:11:43,159 --> 00:11:46,159 made me take more photos. I think it was just realizing that I may 165 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:48,600 not be back to this area for a while, and I might be seeing 166 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:52,679 some things that are really cool and poorly documented, and so I take a 167 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:56,639 shit ton of photos. You know, I got like one hundred and twenty 168 00:11:56,679 --> 00:12:00,120 eight gigabyte megabyte or one hundred and twenty eight gigabyte card excuse me, me 169 00:12:00,159 --> 00:12:07,639 and my nikon at least. So anyway, I sent photos to doctor Michael 170 00:12:07,639 --> 00:12:13,519 Wyndham Mike, and he responded that this thing was already on his radar. 171 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:20,120 It's probably a hybrid between Astrolepus obscura and possibly Astrolepis deltida. I didn't realize 172 00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:24,840 there were at this time. There's really only six species of Astrolypis. There's 173 00:12:24,159 --> 00:12:28,399 I mean, there's obviously a few more. Because this turned out to be 174 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:31,840 an undescribed species that he was already aware of. But you know, if 175 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,480 you look in the flora, I think there's only a few For those that 176 00:12:35,519 --> 00:12:39,320 don't know. Astrolepis is one of the coolest genera of fern you'll ever come 177 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:41,399 across. It's again, it's kyl aanthoidi. It's not right up there with 178 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:50,559 Myriopterus Kylanthes, not the Lina or guy Racosma. These are all fucking great 179 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:56,039 species of fern. You get Merioptrus alabama nsis if you live in the East 180 00:12:56,039 --> 00:13:01,320 coast. But again, it only occupies rocky sites because these are dry adapted 181 00:13:01,360 --> 00:13:03,679 ferns. These are xeric ferns, so they thrive in drier sites. They 182 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:07,919 can just dive back to the route, dry completely out, come back to 183 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,720 life upon getting a little bit of moisture out west or in more drier habitats. 184 00:13:13,399 --> 00:13:16,879 Uh. It is where you start getting more diversity. I remember, 185 00:13:16,879 --> 00:13:20,440 I think I was in Oklahoma once on a rock out crop and saw Merioptress 186 00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:26,279 alabamensis there. I also saw it in Virginia. It's a great fucking it's 187 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:31,159 a great fucking species. It's it's excellent. So go out if you live 188 00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:33,639 in an area, find you know, if you live in an area in 189 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:35,600 the East Coast, feel bad for you, But no, you know, 190 00:13:35,639 --> 00:13:41,039 no harm, no foul. Uh, you go go find like a rock 191 00:13:41,159 --> 00:13:45,399 escarpment or I bet there's merioptress in New York State too. Maybe I don't 192 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:48,639 know, But go find a rocky microcycle, find a rocky area and see 193 00:13:48,639 --> 00:13:52,639 if you can find merioptress. Alabamensas shit. You know what, I think. 194 00:13:52,639 --> 00:13:56,799 I'm wrong. I'm looking at I don't think there is any in New 195 00:13:56,879 --> 00:14:01,480 York State. Supposely there's an observation in Connecticut, and it's throughout Appalachia, 196 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:07,399 in West Virginia, Virginia, western Maryland, Pennsylvania, south central Pennsylvania, 197 00:14:07,879 --> 00:14:11,320 et cetera. And then I think it touches southern Illinois. What the fuck? 198 00:14:11,399 --> 00:14:16,039 There's some in Uh they got somebody Wisconsin, Dell's. I didn't know 199 00:14:16,159 --> 00:14:20,000 it. I did not know that they got some just west of Madison. 200 00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:22,320 There's a Mirria. There's a merioptrus west of Madison, Wisconsin. What the 201 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:28,120 fuck? So this is very cold talk. That's got to be alabamasis because 202 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:31,440 I think that's the most widespread species but to go try and get some No, 203 00:14:31,559 --> 00:14:37,639 it's grassless merioptist grassless. No shit, that's a beautiful species. I 204 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:41,720 gotta go see that. Now, go get some find a sporre afill, 205 00:14:41,759 --> 00:14:43,559 you know, because it being a fern, they find they got fertile France, 206 00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:48,840 they got spore Layden Franz. And I go get a spore laden front. 207 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,840 You'll flip it over. You'll know it's got spores on it because it'll 208 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:56,000 have a little it'll have story around the marginal leaf, and it'll be the 209 00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:00,159 leaf that looks different will be the odd man out. It's not a If 210 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:01,919 it's a leaf blade, then you got pin on either side of the rackets. 211 00:15:01,919 --> 00:15:05,840 But that aside, we don't need to get into the nuances of ferm 212 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:09,080 morphology right now and the way you grow these things. I think there's some 213 00:15:09,159 --> 00:15:13,720 guides online for the Caylanthoid ferns. That's the name of this group. C 214 00:15:13,919 --> 00:15:16,399 H E I L A N T h O I D. You get some 215 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:22,320 sand, you slightly wet it, don't make it soaking. Throw it in 216 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:26,759 in the microwave and like a tupperware or a petrie dish, uh heat it 217 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:31,320 up at I don't know for how long, fuck thirty seconds minute. Maybe 218 00:15:31,559 --> 00:15:35,440 pasteurize it. You're not You're not sterilizing, and pasteurize it. Scrape some 219 00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:39,679 spore. You gotta let these to get the spore out of the story, 220 00:15:39,679 --> 00:15:41,960 which are the clusters of sprani you gotta put in like a paper envelope. 221 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,240 I guess through that, and then use a razor blade to cut it up, 222 00:15:46,279 --> 00:15:48,960 like you're cutting up some shitty blow. You know, all blow is 223 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:54,240 shitty, but I'm just saying, and uh. And then just sprinkle the 224 00:15:56,679 --> 00:16:00,000 sprinkle the spores on the sand and you'll get the You'll get the gametophytes grow 225 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,240 and they look nothing like the sporophyte, which is the actual adult fern. 226 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:07,440 And I'm not sure how Mirianpterus is, but I've heard astro leapis. You 227 00:16:07,519 --> 00:16:11,720 know. Martin Grantam was telling me he got you know, spore to he 228 00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:17,120 germinated spores and got it to go to sporophyte. Forget what species. Mede 229 00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:21,840 was into Jerema within like six weeks, which is incredible. And he gave 230 00:16:21,879 --> 00:16:23,639 me an astra Lepis once too. I forget what it is. But these 231 00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:29,320 fucking things, man, are just there are such a phenomenal fern species are 232 00:16:29,399 --> 00:16:32,960 so cool. They're so cool. We get Astrolepis into Jerema down here in 233 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,120 South Texas growing out of little cracks and rocks. But you know, you 234 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:37,840 could do a little rock garden thing. You know, go get a boulder, 235 00:16:38,039 --> 00:16:41,679 right, steal one from some corporate landscaping, you know, find a 236 00:16:41,759 --> 00:16:44,960 friend that's got a fork lift, you know, give him a six pack 237 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,559 him lift up a fucking boulder for you to take it to your yard or 238 00:16:48,639 --> 00:16:52,840 your apartment. Throw the boulder in the apartment, preferably close to a window, 239 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,159 and uh and so the little good meta fights in there. That's what 240 00:16:56,279 --> 00:16:59,720 you do, you know. So anyway, this is a new species. 241 00:16:59,759 --> 00:17:03,080 It's undescribed species, which makes sense because I was looking at it and I 242 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:04,720 was like, well, I guess if I go to the keys into Jerima, 243 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:08,880 because it's got heavy scales and you know, hairs on the ad, 244 00:17:10,039 --> 00:17:12,599 a seal surface on the top side of the pinna, but of the leaf, 245 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:15,920 a little leaflet. But it doesn't fucking look like into Jerema, I 246 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,519 know, into Jerma. This thing is maybe it's just an ecotype. It 247 00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:25,319 is indeed an ecotype. Remember, an ecotype is just a population of a 248 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:27,680 species. Well, it's more than an ecotype, but you know what I 249 00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:33,039 mean. Ecotype is the population of a species that has been selected for according 250 00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:40,480 to the aspects of its surrounding environment, whether that's pollinators or dispersers. Obviously 251 00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:45,799 that's not the case in a fern because their spores are wind dispersed, but 252 00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:49,279 and there don't produce flowers. But you know, it could be anything, 253 00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:52,519 any facet of the local environment, climate, rainfall, geology, whatever. 254 00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:57,359 This thing was growing on marble at ten five hundred feet elevation in the mountains 255 00:17:57,359 --> 00:18:03,319 of fucking Mexico at twenty degrees latitude north. It had quite obviously been selected 256 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:11,400 for by some very specific, you know, aspects of the surrounding environment. 257 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:15,200 And so anyway, it was fucking it was really cool, uh to see 258 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,759 this and to learn that it was indeed a new species. I was right, 259 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:22,799 this thing was unique. God, the green tie is strong. I'm 260 00:18:22,839 --> 00:18:29,279 drinking some fucking drinking some damn transmission fluid over here made this. Uh you 261 00:18:29,359 --> 00:18:33,400 know, I mixed the dragon well up with the gunpowder green in a loose 262 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:37,000 leaf, little stainless steel kettle and uh just got a strainer in it and 263 00:18:37,079 --> 00:18:40,240 then drink that. Mix it with water, make it strong as hell, 264 00:18:40,279 --> 00:18:41,480 mix it with water. I don't think I mixed this with water. It's 265 00:18:41,519 --> 00:18:48,160 a little too much anyway. So that's that whole mountain. Uh, that 266 00:18:48,279 --> 00:18:52,559 astrolepis new speeds of astrolepis. There was Nolina parviflora there, which is like 267 00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:56,920 a coallescent nolina that looks like a yucca. Uh. Where was the gave 268 00:18:57,039 --> 00:19:03,000 samiana number of oaks. There was pink Guicula mornensis growing within the cracks of 269 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:07,160 not the cracks, but at the base of these boulders. On this this 270 00:19:07,839 --> 00:19:12,599 what looked like a boulder pile covered in leaf stuff. There was Echavarius secunda. 271 00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:17,480 We talked about. I talked about all this which you guys last episode. 272 00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:21,400 There was a Stevia there that had incredibly waxy leaves. I mentioned that 273 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:26,799 when too was undescribed. I finally found out what species of Stevia it was, 274 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:34,200 and it was, uh stevie Stevia Pyrola folia, presumably after Pyrola, 275 00:19:34,279 --> 00:19:40,279 which is in eric casey, which is a small little micro hizol. Well, 276 00:19:40,319 --> 00:19:44,559 they're all micro hizel herb. Well, I think it's I think actually 277 00:19:44,559 --> 00:19:48,119 there it's evergreen. Depends, but uh, you know, you can find 278 00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:52,240 in coniferous forests. It associates with presumably with the ectomycro hizel fungi that associates 279 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,599 associates with a lot of the trees in a coniferous forest. Yeah, Pyrola 280 00:19:56,759 --> 00:20:00,559 is a cool genus. It's it's got porci athers. You get Pyrola than 281 00:20:00,599 --> 00:20:07,039 Tata Pyrola, Aphila, et cetera. And it's Pyrola in Monotrapoiti. Is 282 00:20:07,079 --> 00:20:11,359 it in the ghost plant subfamily? Is like the one odd man out that's 283 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:15,720 not micoheterotrophic. Yes, it is. It's in subfamily Monotropoiti. I thought 284 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:21,400 I remembered seeing that. So not everything in mono Trapoiti, the ghost plant 285 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:27,839 subfamily of Eric Casey, the blueberry family is micoheterotrophic. Some are just well 286 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:30,720 maybe it is a little bit. I don't know. I don't know who 287 00:20:30,759 --> 00:20:33,720 the fuck knows what's going on with the fungi here. But the leaves on 288 00:20:33,799 --> 00:20:37,839 this thing are on the genus pyrole are incredibly beautiful. They got like a 289 00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:41,720 mint green venationan to them, and then the rest of the tissue in the 290 00:20:41,799 --> 00:20:45,119 leaf is like a darker green. I think one of the common names might 291 00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:52,279 be evergreen really cool flowers to porsidal anthers. Not surprisingly, that whole group 292 00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:56,880 is fucking amazing. Monotrapoiti that subfamily. But I suggest going to a naturalists 293 00:20:56,920 --> 00:21:02,440 and looking at going to monotrip the clay typing that in the explorer bar and 294 00:21:02,519 --> 00:21:03,920 then looking at all the cool species in it, and just you know, 295 00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:08,039 just like you're looking through the catalog of life, you know, to choose 296 00:21:08,079 --> 00:21:11,599 your own adventure book of what tax on you want to fawn over. Anyway, 297 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:18,480 that aside that Stevia apparently whoever named it thought it's leaves look like Pyrola, 298 00:21:18,559 --> 00:21:22,279 and they kind of do, but more and more specifically, the leaves 299 00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:27,680 were covered in this intense wax, no doubt a result of selection at ten 300 00:21:27,759 --> 00:21:33,880 thousand and six hundred foot elevation where there's much less UV because there's are much 301 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:38,279 more UV because there's much less atmosphere to break up the incoming ultraviolet light. 302 00:21:40,039 --> 00:21:42,400 So I presume it's you know, the wax, of course, is like 303 00:21:42,559 --> 00:21:45,960 hair. It can serve multiple functions, but one of the prime functions that 304 00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:52,680 wax on a leaf does is limit it mitigates moisture loss and also protects the 305 00:21:52,799 --> 00:21:56,960 leaf tissue from light. Reflects a little bit of that light back all right, 306 00:21:56,079 --> 00:22:00,720 leaves and stems, like in the case of copiapoa or many cool cacti, 307 00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:04,480 the wax is just protecting the stem. But I was in love with 308 00:22:04,559 --> 00:22:08,200 this thing, and I collected an herbarium voucher. So I'm gonna either as 309 00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:12,640 session at a mobot or at the seel Ross or fuck, I don't know, 310 00:22:12,759 --> 00:22:18,000 coco collect rbarium vouchers. You know, when you're going out botanizing, 311 00:22:18,599 --> 00:22:22,359 even just for yourself, right, even if it's just in your own neighborhood 312 00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:26,119 or whatever, it's nice. You can make some nice pressed plants. You 313 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:27,519 know they're important, and then you learn how to mount them and put a 314 00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:32,599 little tag on them with the fucking coordinates and notes about the habitat and what 315 00:22:32,799 --> 00:22:37,200 family it's in and what elevation and you know, all the interesting shit. 316 00:22:37,279 --> 00:22:44,519 I like extensive herbarium tags. I don't like it when the tag is just 317 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:45,880 like you know where it was collected, and then you know it's like some 318 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:49,319 half as shit. I understand everybody's busy, but do it for saints, 319 00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:55,000 okay, or just for yourself so that you start becoming more observant and paying 320 00:22:55,079 --> 00:22:57,839 more attention to what's going on around you. And you know, as you 321 00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:03,119 know, as the America continues to defund the shit out of science so that 322 00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,599 we can waste more money on things like I don't know, obsolete fucking road 323 00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:15,039 expansions and corporate welfare and that kind of thing. And let's uh take it 324 00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,079 upon ourselves to be sure to collect the or burium vouchers and a session them 325 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,680 at your nearest university. And then it gives you a reason to go lurk 326 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,279 in the university or burying too. You learn a lot there this, of 327 00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,440 course, assuming you have the fucking time to a lot of people, of 328 00:23:27,559 --> 00:23:33,240 course don't. But you know, all the time you spend do playing video 329 00:23:33,279 --> 00:23:36,319 games or you know, staring gatemouth into your phone, you could be doing 330 00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:41,720 some other interesting stuff too. Uh So, anyway that brings me around. 331 00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,480 I wanted to mention too, some of the for anybody listening who's interested, 332 00:23:45,559 --> 00:23:48,799 the gear that I use, in case it'll be of any benefit to you. 333 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:52,599 I'll try to cover all the bases here. I start with, you 334 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,279 know, the bag I use if I'm going out, I use I used 335 00:23:56,279 --> 00:23:59,319 to be. I was a fucking bike messenger twenty years ago. I liked 336 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:02,799 it because it had high turnover rate. I could work for two months quit. 337 00:24:03,759 --> 00:24:10,200 You know, half the half the the employees that do most or use 338 00:24:10,279 --> 00:24:11,799 I don't even think you can do anymore. What do you do? What 339 00:24:11,839 --> 00:24:14,400 do you deliver? Bike messengers still exists? What do you delivered? Just 340 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,759 weed and food? I don't know anyway. I think the internet's mostly made 341 00:24:17,799 --> 00:24:19,400 it obsolete. But back in the day it was a nice job. Half 342 00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:26,319 the employment pool in that field was we're all alcoholics anyway, so they were 343 00:24:26,319 --> 00:24:29,279 always quitting and leaving it whatever. It was a fun It was a fun 344 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,720 job, and so that, you know, the fluidity of the the labor 345 00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:37,839 pool and that profession made it easy to quit. You could quit, you 346 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,920 know, work a job two or three months, then quit it. And 347 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:42,559 that was the best part about having a job is being able to quit it, 348 00:24:42,559 --> 00:24:47,200 because it's not everyone's lucky enough to have a job that they enjoy the 349 00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,000 shit out of and that enriches their life. In most cases, it's quite 350 00:24:49,039 --> 00:24:55,799 the opposite. It's just like another form of school. And so, you 351 00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:57,400 know, the best thing about having a job is being able to quit it. 352 00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,519 You just use your job to fund to all the other things in your 353 00:25:00,559 --> 00:25:04,000 life that you're truly passionate about. Uh. And that's what I did, 354 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:07,400 you know, when I worked for the fucking road and was learning botany. 355 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:11,480 But anyway, point was I when I was a bike messenger. I learned 356 00:25:12,519 --> 00:25:17,440 to trust heavily in bike messenger bags. The best thing about them being that 357 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,240 they're waterproof. They're made out of this truck tart material, which yes, 358 00:25:19,319 --> 00:25:22,519 can be heavy as fuck, but you also know your shit is not gonna 359 00:25:22,519 --> 00:25:26,920 get wet. I remember biking down Fifth Avenue in New York City in a 360 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,880 fucking snowstorm once. That was like two thousand and five. What gud when 361 00:25:30,079 --> 00:25:33,160 was that? Fuck? It was a while ago, and I was soaked 362 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,000 to the bone and freezing, and it was like the day before Christmas, 363 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:41,359 so people were just acting like assholes and uh, and everything in my bag 364 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:48,200 was completely dry. I biked from like fucking you know, ninety fifth Street 365 00:25:48,279 --> 00:25:52,960 down to like the fucking Lower east Side or wherever it was soho wherever it 366 00:25:52,079 --> 00:25:56,799 is, fucking I was bringing a bunch of like clothes to some fashion shoot, 367 00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:02,359 and uh, everything in their stay completely so that, among many other 368 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:07,039 experiences, taught me that messenger bags are great. So I went and got 369 00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,000 a a Chrome bag. Chrome is kind of a goofy fucking company. They're 370 00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:15,720 expensive, They're a little overpriced. You can find other messenger bags that are 371 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,440 you know, that will suffice, that are probably half the price, but 372 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,640 you know, you want lots of pockets, and you just want to make 373 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,720 sure that truck tart material, it's like a thick vinyl material is on the 374 00:26:25,799 --> 00:26:29,279 inside of the bag. So I use that. I'll bring an umbrella, 375 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,359 both for rain so I can continue filming, and an umbrella for sun as 376 00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:38,359 well. That that last part really proved helpful at the Strombocack the spot, 377 00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,480 because that sun was just punishing. Man. It was like the fucking air 378 00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:47,920 wasn't even that hot compared to what I've been used to, but that sun 379 00:26:48,079 --> 00:26:51,599 was just intense, and so I kept having to go take breaks under a 380 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:56,200 Vicellia tree until I realized maybe it was Prosopislava got it. Was one of 381 00:26:56,279 --> 00:26:59,519 the native Misuit down there. Now now Tuma lava got it, whatever the 382 00:26:59,559 --> 00:27:02,319 fuck, And then I realized, I, oh shit, I've got an 383 00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,160 umbrella. I can just use that so I was holding the camera with one 384 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,839 hand, the umbrella with the other, and then carrying this background and then 385 00:27:08,079 --> 00:27:12,799 for herbarium boucher specimens. It's always good to collect something so that if someone's 386 00:27:12,799 --> 00:27:17,519 studying it later, they can use the DNA and you can access it later. 387 00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:22,519 You don't just have photos. Whatever. I bring a I think it's 388 00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:26,799 like a Strathmore sketchbook. It's like a seventeen by eleven sketch book. Maybe 389 00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:29,480 it's a little bit bigger. Yeah, it's twelve by eighteen. It's a 390 00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:32,880 twelve by eighteen Strathmore sketchbook. It's got like twenty four sheets in it. 391 00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:34,240 You don't need a lot. You could probably stand to use more if you 392 00:27:34,319 --> 00:27:38,079 want it. And then I will put newspaper in that. You know, 393 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:42,039 if you can find newspaper anymore, go to like a go get like what 394 00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,680 I think. They still produce a lot of junk mail and fucking you know, 395 00:27:47,079 --> 00:27:48,359 real estate catalogs or whatever it used to be. You could just go 396 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,839 to like a diner, like a twenty four hour you know, cozy corner 397 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,279 diner, and they'd have a little rack of the fucking newspaper from the Realist 398 00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,680 whatever I don't think that they do that anymore, but either way, you 399 00:28:00,759 --> 00:28:04,160 get some paper, put that in at put that in the the sketch pad. 400 00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,319 The sketch pad is mainly just for structure to hold it up so that 401 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,480 the shit doesn't bend. Then I'll get a little roll of masking tape and 402 00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,119 use that to hold things in place, because if you don't do that, 403 00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,920 it'll be you know, it'll all get destroyed, it'll fall out, et 404 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,079 cetera. You could probably think of other variations on as too, maybe even 405 00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,440 using envelopes whatever. I like the twelve y eighteen sketchbook because it's about the 406 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,599 size of a plant press, and I don't have to actually carry a plant 407 00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,799 press out there. A plant press uses straps to hold everything down and prevent 408 00:28:33,839 --> 00:28:36,519 it from falling out, and it applies pressure it keeps it flat. That's 409 00:28:36,599 --> 00:28:40,200 ideal, but obviously it's a pain of the ass to bring out with you 410 00:28:40,359 --> 00:28:42,720 unless you got a donkey. So I recommend you get a donkey, but 411 00:28:42,839 --> 00:28:45,200 not everyone can, of course do it. If you do get a donkey, 412 00:28:45,279 --> 00:28:48,160 put a little party head on it. Make sure it's you know, 413 00:28:48,319 --> 00:28:52,640 fairly compensated. His days off et cetera. Anyway, So I get that 414 00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,079 strapth More sketchbook, I throw that in there. I got a camera, 415 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,680 use a Nikon D seventy five hundred. I like the non I like the 416 00:29:00,079 --> 00:29:03,160 on Pro models because the pro models don't have a built in flash, and 417 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,359 I need that built in flash because I'm shrinking the aperture down super small, 418 00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,640 at least F twenty two or above, and then using a flash to compensate. 419 00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,680 Because you're shrinking that aperture down, the hole that the light comes through 420 00:29:15,759 --> 00:29:19,680 is so small. You got to compensate the light source. And then also 421 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,599 if you're shooting in the daytime and bright sunlight and using a flash, it's 422 00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,640 gonna murk the quality of the photo. It's gonna come out kind of like 423 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:33,720 blasted and just shitty. So you've got to cover the subject that you're photographing, 424 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,440 either with your friend's shadow, your shadow by standing in front of the 425 00:29:37,519 --> 00:29:42,920 sun between the subject and the sun the subject you're photographing, or you can 426 00:29:44,079 --> 00:29:48,519 use that umbrella. You can also get like light diffusers, like a white 427 00:29:48,559 --> 00:29:53,680 you know, like I kind of basically like a white umbrella, just something 428 00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,680 to diffuse the light so it's not as harsh. You'll probably notice that like 429 00:29:56,799 --> 00:30:02,200 taking photos in cloudy days, they always look better than in sunny days. 430 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:06,079 It's a bright sun, especially in deserts and arid areas and mountains and the 431 00:30:06,119 --> 00:30:10,400 places I go. It makes super high contrasts. So I bring all that 432 00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:14,119 shit out. I get like a twelve dollars diffuser that you know, looks 433 00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,279 like one of those circular sunscreen things you put in the windshield. It's got 434 00:30:18,319 --> 00:30:22,160 a wire frame around it that you can like fold up. You twist it 435 00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:23,480 and fold it up, and I'll put that around the camber lens. Use 436 00:30:23,519 --> 00:30:26,480 that to diffuse some of the light. Youet really nice light out of that. 437 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,480 But that's what I take when I'm going out doing bidany of course, 438 00:30:30,519 --> 00:30:37,559 some water too. I'll generally bring some paper, seed packets. It's always 439 00:30:37,599 --> 00:30:40,200 good to have paper with you too. There's a way you can just fold 440 00:30:40,279 --> 00:30:42,000 little envelopes out of paper if you get the chance, like an eight and 441 00:30:42,039 --> 00:30:47,559 a half by eleven sheet, hold it vertical, fold the bottom half up, 442 00:30:48,279 --> 00:30:51,680 you know, so that the crease is horizontal, and then at the 443 00:30:51,759 --> 00:30:55,880 top of that page you fold a little lip down. So you've got this 444 00:30:56,079 --> 00:30:59,160 eight and a half by eleven sheet that's now folded in half with the top 445 00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,160 has a little lip that's maybe half an inch, and then I'll have to 446 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:07,799 do a video on this. Sometimes you can fold that over, you flip, 447 00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,880 then flip that over and like fold a little triangle and you're basically using 448 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,480 that lip that you just made to hold to hold the other piece doing some 449 00:31:15,559 --> 00:31:18,640 more gami shit to hold the other triangular corner that you fold over. You 450 00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,720 fold one corner over, then fold the other corner over. The corner that 451 00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:23,880 you fold over has that little lip on it, and then you can use 452 00:31:25,279 --> 00:31:29,119 the other side to tuck into that little lip that you created by folding the 453 00:31:29,279 --> 00:31:32,480 top half inch down, et cetera. And so you got like this little 454 00:31:32,519 --> 00:31:37,119 diamond shaped pocket. We could make your own seat envelopes, but or you 455 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,559 know, envelopes for parts of your barium specimen that fell off whatever. So 456 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,920 you got all that, and then you know, for for apps that I 457 00:31:47,079 --> 00:31:51,000 use, because these are really important, I use that GPS status app by 458 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,079 mobi Wick. I forget what the fuck it's called. It's moby something. 459 00:31:53,119 --> 00:31:56,720 If you go to like the Google Play Store, it's listed on there by 460 00:31:56,839 --> 00:32:00,480 moby wiki. Some shit. I don't know it's like that. I know 461 00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:02,119 it begins to the M and it's got a The icon is like yellow and 462 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:09,200 black that gives you elevation GPS, all that shit that's worth writing down wherever 463 00:32:09,279 --> 00:32:15,920 you're someplace cool and notable and especially remote that you might not be be again. 464 00:32:16,759 --> 00:32:21,480 I use uh, yeah, I use that elevation app. I got 465 00:32:21,559 --> 00:32:23,640 like a meters to feet app. I use all this stuff. You know, 466 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:29,079 basically, any any information that you can think to use that's pertinent to 467 00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,759 what you're doing is useful. I use like a my radar app too, 468 00:32:31,839 --> 00:32:35,759 to see what the cloud cover is going to be like if there's an incoming 469 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,559 system. GPS locker app keeps keeps track of where I'm at so that my 470 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:45,599 GPS is always accurate. I use Strava the track myself so I don't get 471 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,960 lost if I'm off trail, which I usually am, uh, and so 472 00:32:50,039 --> 00:32:52,480 that I can find my way back. I naturalist, of course, but 473 00:32:52,559 --> 00:32:58,359 I obscure everything. You know, all this shit is important because this is 474 00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,839 what's going to help you on the field. These conphones, man, some 475 00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:06,160 of the things that I wonder, like people were collecting orbarium vouchers or botanizing 476 00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,000 in remote places forty years ago. Like, God, what a pain in 477 00:33:08,079 --> 00:33:10,559 the ass that must have been. You really had to be on top of 478 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:15,039 your shit, paper maps and just good sense of direction and keeping good notes 479 00:33:15,119 --> 00:33:21,359 of where you were and where you turned whatever. I also use a tectonic 480 00:33:21,599 --> 00:33:25,960 which excuse me, is lithospheric plates APP, because that's those are the maps. 481 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:31,559 I pay attention to bioregions and tectonic plates because tectonic plates especially can inform 482 00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:37,319 you about a lot of the goings on, like why there's a mountain range 483 00:33:37,359 --> 00:33:39,000 in a certain place in your region. You know, you look at the 484 00:33:39,319 --> 00:33:45,880 pay attention to where the subduction zones are all that shit so and rocked app 485 00:33:46,079 --> 00:33:51,480 ROCKD. That's always important for if you're curious about what the geology is or 486 00:33:51,519 --> 00:33:54,720 what the age of the geology beneath your feet is. Rocked is good for 487 00:33:54,839 --> 00:33:59,319 that. Now that just measures, That just tells you. And it depends 488 00:33:59,359 --> 00:34:01,400 on where you are, depends on how good the data available to the makers 489 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,519 of the app has been. In the US, it's normally good. In 490 00:34:04,599 --> 00:34:08,800 the Mexican in Mexico it's normally lousy because Mexico will just their geologic maps are 491 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:15,440 not as accurate as the US. It'll just have a broad area, you 492 00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:19,639 know, with no variation in between. It'll say it's this age and blah 493 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,599 blah. It's just it's just much more broad and vague. But it just 494 00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,920 pays attention to the rock that's at the surface, not you know, what 495 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,320 you're necessarily looking at on the side of a mountain, just what's exposed at 496 00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:35,920 the surface. If there's like a deep gorge or a cliff for or full 497 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,519 cliff, it's not going to tell you what the rock is halfway down the 498 00:34:38,559 --> 00:34:42,920 cliff that you can see from this road cut or this cliff face. So 499 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,559 you got to keep that in mind when you're using it. Let's see what 500 00:34:47,639 --> 00:34:52,360 else do. There's an app called Windy that I sometimes use, which shows 501 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:58,280 you wind direction and speed. But again it's just the not necessarily which way 502 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,440 the clouds are moving, just the win and at the surface. At Earth's 503 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,280 surface, you know the clouds might be moving a different direction if they're high 504 00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,760 up. Anyway, hopefully that helps you a little bit. So anyway, 505 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:16,880 moving on to the next habitat that that we lurked at. The next day, 506 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:22,960 we went to a spot that was in this canyon at in elevation. 507 00:35:22,159 --> 00:35:24,320 We went, you know, down from ten thousand, six hundred feet to 508 00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:30,280 this little canyon that was at and it was took a while to get there. 509 00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:35,119 It was like a lot of curvy, winding roads along these sketchy cliff 510 00:35:35,199 --> 00:35:39,920 faces, very precipitous steep one lane roads on these limestone cliff faces. And 511 00:35:40,119 --> 00:35:45,199 some of the limestone here had beautiful contortions in it, like it had been 512 00:35:45,679 --> 00:35:49,559 twisted and gnarled, which I haven't seen rock like that since, you know, 513 00:35:49,639 --> 00:35:52,920 the Franciscan Formation in the Bay Area. Some of those you know red 514 00:35:53,679 --> 00:36:00,000 shirt beds, those red biogenic silica beds, did you see you know, 515 00:36:00,119 --> 00:36:05,400 near like Kirby Cove or in Marine or the road the Kirby Cove or some 516 00:36:05,519 --> 00:36:12,119 other places like in the Oakland Foothills so or Oakland Hills, excuse me. 517 00:36:12,559 --> 00:36:14,599 So it was it was really nice to see that. I mean, it 518 00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:19,920 was just obvious of like these tortured rocks, these this uplift, this compaction, 519 00:36:21,119 --> 00:36:22,960 convergent forces, et cetera. Whatever caused these mountains to go up. 520 00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:29,159 The surrounding rock was all limestone. There was marbles, marble in places. 521 00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:31,440 There was evidence that had been metamorphosed a little bit that had been cooked. 522 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:37,280 I still never found the source of the quote cooking where that metamorphic activity, 523 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:44,800 what generated that metamorphosis, Whether it was you know, nearby body of magma 524 00:36:45,039 --> 00:36:47,159 that heated up, or whether that stuff got buried again or what. But 525 00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:52,920 either way, some really cool rocks here and and at the base of this 526 00:36:53,119 --> 00:36:57,440 canyon was a creek, and so it was. It was kind of lush. 527 00:36:58,039 --> 00:37:00,519 There was some you know, there was people, little settlement, there 528 00:37:00,559 --> 00:37:05,760 are people growing papayas, and new one for me that I saw on there 529 00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,239 was Spondius purpurea, which is anacrdiace. It looked like a plum, It 530 00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,679 tasted like a plum. It was a little bit bigger than a plum, 531 00:37:13,119 --> 00:37:17,920 kind of acidic, mildly sweet, but pinnate leaves, which I mean obviously 532 00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,159 to me it was not in rose ace. It wasn't a plum, So 533 00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:27,039 I wondered, it's kind of that was I've never seen that before. Ciullo 534 00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:32,000 is or cirouela whatever was that a common name? Jocote is another common name. 535 00:37:32,159 --> 00:37:35,960 So anyway, I was trying to figure out what family was and turned 536 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,440 out, yeah, Anacardia a c which makes sense with the pinnate leaves. 537 00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:44,480 And so you go through this little canyon, you walk along this road and 538 00:37:44,559 --> 00:37:50,920 then you cross this little creek that's got There was some Montanoa growing in there, 539 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,760 which is a astor ace species. It's a kind of a large genus. 540 00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:59,760 It's notable for having really cool palea reciptacular bracts that kind of you know, 541 00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,000 are large. They kind of look like, you know, it makes 542 00:38:02,039 --> 00:38:07,960 the whole flower head though, this whole daisy like flower head fall off and 543 00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,880 kind of the pale are so big they kind of act like sails. And 544 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:15,559 you could see how it could help disperse it in a windstorm if this thing's 545 00:38:15,599 --> 00:38:20,000 growing on a mountain on a mountain side, like some of them do at 546 00:38:20,079 --> 00:38:23,079 higher elevations in places like Wahaka. But anyway, this was growing out of 547 00:38:23,159 --> 00:38:28,360 the creek. It was Montanoa tomantosa. Another interesting plant that I saw on 548 00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:35,519 there from a possanace tiers of a virgin, who was the common name tiers 549 00:38:35,559 --> 00:38:43,960 of virgin anyway, uh Valisa Valisia glabora of postin aci, And it looked 550 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,800 like a cross between a willow and a potocarp. The fruits are these little 551 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:54,119 green They look like a tiny narrow bean held on a pedicel, like in 552 00:38:54,159 --> 00:38:57,480 a kind of an inflated pedestal at the base, so it kind of makes 553 00:38:57,559 --> 00:39:02,480 them look like a POTOCRPESI that cool family from Southern hemisphere, Jurassic age conifer 554 00:39:02,559 --> 00:39:06,719 family. And then once the fruit's mature, they're no longer green. They 555 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:12,119 turn into these little white missletoe like they look like mistletoe berries like they're kind 556 00:39:12,119 --> 00:39:15,920 of like this clear, translucent fluid. The whole fruit appears as white, 557 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:20,280 very obviously bird dispersed. I guess they're edible to people too, which surprised 558 00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,639 me because I could tell this thing was in a possanace when I saw the 559 00:39:23,679 --> 00:39:28,840 flower. The flowers are tiny. They're like half an inch long, white 560 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:35,280 tubular, five fused petals. Stamens are included inside this tiny white flower looks 561 00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,320 like it's maybe pollinated by a small fly or a small moths. I mean, 562 00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,119 anything that's gonna be able to stick. It's proboscis. It's a little 563 00:39:42,199 --> 00:39:47,599 tube into that tiny white flower, but it's got This plant had alternate leaves, 564 00:39:47,599 --> 00:39:52,639 I mean, everything else about it did not speak a postinace to me, 565 00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:53,920 but It was certainly on my mind when I saw that flower. I 566 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,440 had to go look it up later, and so I just again, there's 567 00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:01,320 another plant. I took like nine photos of habitat flower shots. Leaf shots 568 00:40:01,559 --> 00:40:06,480 get good depth of field. Using the flesh and the small aperture, you 569 00:40:06,599 --> 00:40:08,400 get that nice black background. I someone wrote me once like, how do 570 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,119 you just take all your pictures at night? I'm like, no, you 571 00:40:10,199 --> 00:40:15,199 get that nice black background if you're if the what's in the background is kind 572 00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,800 of dark, like if it's just dark out you're in the shade of a 573 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:22,920 tree, or it's a dark substrate or whatever, could even be asphalt on 574 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:27,280 a bright sunny day, and you're using a small aperture, and then you 575 00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,559 use a flash and the light dissipates beyond a foot or two, so anything 576 00:40:31,639 --> 00:40:35,679 that's beyond that it doesn't get lit up. It just comes out as black 577 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,159 and the subject gets illuminated, and you're again you're shooting like F twenty two. 578 00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:40,960 I think I shot this at like F twenty nine. I'll shoot at 579 00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:45,119 fucking F twenty nine if I need to, Whereas like your phone, your 580 00:40:45,159 --> 00:40:50,800 cell phone normally shoots at like F one point eight to F five if it's 581 00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:52,719 really sunny, it would be like F ten maybe something with like a fast 582 00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:58,000 shutter speed. Anyway, but this was a really cool plant to see. 583 00:40:58,159 --> 00:41:00,280 I was stoked about it. It was growing down the arroyos. It's obviously 584 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,480 heat toleranted. It can probably tolerate some drying out, because it wasn't growing 585 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,679 in this arroyo. This whole canyon Mouth or not Kenyon Mouth. The bottom 586 00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:14,840 of this canyon was somewhat wide, but the actual creek itself was probably only 587 00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:17,519 like twenty feet wide at most. There were some really cool fish species in 588 00:41:17,599 --> 00:41:22,320 there too. I wondered if they were native or invasive. They looked I'm 589 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:28,239 assuming they were maybe native. They were tiny ones and then there were large 590 00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,480 ones. I couldn't tell they were the same species or what. But now 591 00:41:30,679 --> 00:41:36,719 I filmed that video at Caesar's house. You guy's conserving all those rare Mexican 592 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,400 rattlesnakes and trying to breed them for reintroduction. I just released that video today 593 00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,159 and he had some cool fish in there too, and it's got me all 594 00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:50,000 stoked. I'm paying attention to native fish species, especially in the deserts, 595 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,320 because you get intense speciation. Because these little ponds had been isolated for so 596 00:41:54,519 --> 00:41:59,559 long or not for so long, but just you know they're they're so isolated. 597 00:41:59,639 --> 00:42:01,199 I mean, it's deserts. These you know, you might get a 598 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,719 what was a larger lake that then dries up and you get these little lakes 599 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:10,239 then, and so you know, one species later species into six different you 600 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:15,000 get six different little lakes or ponds, and then you get six different species. 601 00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,559 Then of course, since it's limestone, you get all, you know, 602 00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:22,559 these cool fucking caves and little underground creeks and stuff, because limestone dissolves 603 00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:29,519 so readily in acidic rain water. And then you get things like blind catfish, 604 00:42:29,639 --> 00:42:34,840 like the blind catfish and del Rio, the infamous in Northern Mexico or 605 00:42:35,199 --> 00:42:40,519 you know the blind Oh god, I always forget the name blind Mexican tetra 606 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:45,840 right, So anyway, but then you cross this little creek, you go 607 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:52,400 up this hill and and just right there it's just suddenly going from this rich, 608 00:42:52,639 --> 00:42:58,639 lush little creek canyon bottom to just harsh desert. There was a guamu 609 00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:02,840 chill everywhere, which is kind of like I think it's a sister genus to 610 00:43:04,079 --> 00:43:10,320 Ebony, to Ebinopsius ebano Pittysillopium Pittysilobium dulce, which produces an edible fruit, 611 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:15,800 fleshy fruit. And there was just lufa for a diffusa. All over this 612 00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:23,519 limestone slope that was composed of talus falling from the cliff faces above there was 613 00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:29,280 pseudosmodingium. It was I think it was by ready eye. I've seen another 614 00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,519 species of Pseudosmodingium. That whole genus is cool. It's tropical member of the 615 00:43:32,599 --> 00:43:36,800 poison oak family, and it does indeed produce you russi all in it. 616 00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:39,679 So I was sure not to fucking touch the thing. Won't make the same 617 00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:45,840 mistake I made with Comocladia, the genus Comocladia, which I fondled so lovingly 618 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:50,760 in the Dominican Republic four short years ago, and then hit the go get 619 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:52,840 pregnance on my whole face blew up. It was actually pretty funny, and 620 00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:57,280 I got like a crown, not not a crown, what's it called a 621 00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,360 veneer? One of my teeth in the fucking two fell out that like that 622 00:44:00,599 --> 00:44:04,679 cracked, and you know, it was a fucking sight for sore eyes. 623 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:06,679 Man. It was funny. But I was so stoked because I was in 624 00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,320 the Dominican Republic looking at cool plants. I was in some cool cloud forest. 625 00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,760 It was in twenty one, but yeah, man, I was like, 626 00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:15,440 my whole face was puffed up and red and I lost the tooth and 627 00:44:15,519 --> 00:44:19,599 shit and anyway, but it was nice because, yeah, I live on 628 00:44:19,639 --> 00:44:22,480 the borders. You just crossed over in Mexico paying forty bucks to go, 629 00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,000 you know, glue your toothback on. You know, fuck, what would 630 00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,639 that cost here? Three hundred bucks or something. Anyway, moving right along, 631 00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:35,360 So this whole slope was covered in these incredible plants, bursra, elephant 632 00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:37,519 tree. I don't know what species it was. There was a Hectia species 633 00:44:37,639 --> 00:44:40,639 that hectia was actually turned out to be something pretty cool. It was a 634 00:44:40,679 --> 00:44:45,320 Hectia species I had not seen before. So Hectia, of course are like 635 00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:51,360 they're like really spiny pineapples. They're Bromelia. It's trying to be a gaves, 636 00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,960 right. A lot of them are fucking nightmares to encounter, physically beautiful, 637 00:44:54,039 --> 00:44:58,960 to look at, nightmares to touch Hectia in Dickie. Dickie is in 638 00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,360 the Northern Hemisphere. Hectya is in the Northern Hemisphere. Excuse me, Dikia 639 00:45:02,519 --> 00:45:06,960 is in the southern hemisphere. You get Dickias in Brazil. Dikia and a 640 00:45:07,039 --> 00:45:12,039 colerium. We're two of the really mean romelia. It's beautiful, beautiful rosettes, 641 00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:17,119 beautiful rosette of these these basically you know, members of pineapple family bromeliac 642 00:45:19,039 --> 00:45:23,719 that are adapted to xeric conditions. There's zero fyts. Anclerium and Dichia were 643 00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:30,079 all over Brazil growing in the Campos rupestrees, the rocky habitats uh forming these 644 00:45:30,119 --> 00:45:34,880 colonies. Hectia is just the northern hemisphere equivalent of that. And this was 645 00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,679 Hectia. Excuse me ZAMUDIOI. Hectia I think has like eighty species in it. 646 00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:45,079 It's mega diverse, hyperdiverse in Mexico. And remember seeing some really cool 647 00:45:45,159 --> 00:45:51,280 ones. What the fuck was I in Puebla in twenty two. I think 648 00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:55,079 some really cool ones that are still unidentified on I naturalist, but they're main 649 00:45:55,159 --> 00:45:59,519 those little those little saw teeth that occur along the leaf blades will break off 650 00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:02,599 in you will break it off in me jadgi and uh you know, then 651 00:46:02,639 --> 00:46:06,039 you they pop out two weeks later with a little bit of puss and you're 652 00:46:06,039 --> 00:46:08,280 good to go uh, and then they're cool. They're really cool when they 653 00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:12,159 flower too. The flowers are tiny, they're not really notable, but you 654 00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,880 know, it produces this big stalk that comes up. We get Hectia glamorada 655 00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:20,239 here in South Texas, and Hecty glamorada is pretty common throughout Mexico. In 656 00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:24,199 fact, we saw it in some of the places in Carretro. So there 657 00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:31,199 was hectia just everywhere. There was either it was both Vicellia and Prosopis Vitchellia 658 00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:36,519 shaft Nearai it might have been I think it was schaft ary one of them. 659 00:46:36,559 --> 00:46:39,679 But espasically, these spiny legume trees, they're like misky lookalites. Then 660 00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:45,920 you get Prosopis now nel Tuma uh levigata was everywhere. That was like the 661 00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:49,519 common shape tree. Not everywhere. This is a barren environment. And then 662 00:46:49,519 --> 00:46:57,480 there were these huge biznagas. That kind of cactus Pleatia canthus Mammalaria parkinsoniana was 663 00:46:57,519 --> 00:47:02,280 abundant too, little hell rasor cactus with long, long white central spines like 664 00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:06,639 two or three inches long, and then abundant tricomb's kind of creating a little 665 00:47:06,639 --> 00:47:09,360 shade screen for itself. And then yeah, like I said, there was 666 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,360 a kind of cactus plate at Canthus and all in this gentle slope up to 667 00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:21,119 this cliff face, and there was isolator serious du mortii. There two big 668 00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:23,760 columnar cactus abundant, the thing I talked about last podcast. There was martillo 669 00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:30,880 cactus geometrics ens, some of them looking exceptionally haggard, very skinny and drought 670 00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:35,280 stressed. But the loaf offer the fusa was wild to look at. Man, 671 00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:39,119 it was such a cool I'd never encountered that species before. You know, 672 00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:43,960 it's it's so unique. It doesn't look I mean, it's easy to 673 00:47:44,039 --> 00:47:47,119 pick out from Willmzi in the South Texas. One looks like a green donut 674 00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,639 that someone you know left on, like the driver seated our car and then 675 00:47:51,679 --> 00:47:53,000 accidentally sat on you know, forgot it was there. I went not to 676 00:47:53,079 --> 00:47:57,320 go check something, came back, sat on it and squished it. And 677 00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:01,960 it's got these just prominent tubercles. Doesn't really have lobes like well mz I 678 00:48:02,119 --> 00:48:07,000 does. It looks like I mean, if it had spines, that would 679 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,880 almost look like a thilo cactus or a fucking oh not a mam. They're 680 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:15,800 not the tubercles aren't that pronounced, but sure is unique. And you know 681 00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:22,480 each stem was producing multiple heads. So God, that thing's got to taste 682 00:48:22,519 --> 00:48:25,239 so better too, because being a spineless cactus in this in this environment, 683 00:48:25,519 --> 00:48:28,599 you know, you got to have something. If you don't have spines, 684 00:48:28,639 --> 00:48:32,159 you've got to just have really terrible tasting alkaloids. I'd love to see an 685 00:48:32,199 --> 00:48:38,719 alkaloid profile of Diffusa lafafer Diffusa. You know who's ever run that through HPLC. 686 00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:45,440 I'd love to see see what's in there. And then the highlight of 687 00:48:45,519 --> 00:48:50,159 this was Strombo cactus. This the formance, which is another tiny cactus golf 688 00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:57,320 ball sized, is an adult with beautiful geometric patterning on it, these spiraling 689 00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:04,840 tubercles and tuberculate rib and uh, just just growing ensconced in the limestone and 690 00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:08,239 like a generally in a cliff, not cliff face, but like a rock 691 00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:13,280 face either composed of talus or of like a giant boulder that fell down from 692 00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:17,000 the cliffs above, and uh and just liking all over it. I mean, 693 00:49:17,119 --> 00:49:21,599 really cool black light. It was black because it was dormant. I'd 694 00:49:21,599 --> 00:49:23,639 love to see it when it's come, when it comes back to life, 695 00:49:23,679 --> 00:49:30,559 when it's green and photosynthetic, but it was you know, all these all 696 00:49:30,639 --> 00:49:35,440 the stromokacs I saw grew like this, like they all seem to you probably 697 00:49:35,519 --> 00:49:39,480 germanate with this in this bed of lichen. It was remarkable to see. 698 00:49:39,519 --> 00:49:43,599 I see that same thing with so many different cactus species. I saw it 699 00:49:43,639 --> 00:49:52,079 with Mammalaria perez de la rosa uh Andersoniana subspecies Andersoniana later the next day, 700 00:49:52,519 --> 00:49:55,559 just to just so cool. I mean, I love looking at those connections. 701 00:49:55,639 --> 00:49:59,519 You know, rather than just hyper focusing on the one species, you 702 00:49:59,559 --> 00:50:01,599 gotta look get everything. And that's what makes it so enriching to be here. 703 00:50:01,639 --> 00:50:05,840 That's why I can come to a place like this, spend their spend 704 00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:07,800 three hours there, not care about the fact that I'm almost gonna get heat 705 00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:12,400 stroke and I'm sweating my ass off. I'm soaked in sweat. You know, 706 00:50:12,519 --> 00:50:15,840 this little dinky umbrella is the only thing preventing me from keeling over. 707 00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:21,480 It's the dry season. Everything else is not flowering. Well more, Chillia 708 00:50:21,559 --> 00:50:24,159 mexicano was flowering. It's a little shrub in the kreosol family with broad leaves. 709 00:50:24,199 --> 00:50:27,880 You'd never guess it was in the koreosol family, except for the pinnate 710 00:50:28,519 --> 00:50:31,800 pinnate leaves, the you know opposite you know, kind of like a legium 711 00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:37,159 thing, you know, little leaflets opposite each other. There was I think 712 00:50:37,199 --> 00:50:42,440 there was Celaginella lepidophala too. There were a couple of different Silaginella species, 713 00:50:42,519 --> 00:50:45,840 the spike mosses, which aren't a moss at all. They actually have a 714 00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:50,760 vascular system, unlike moss. Celaganella is so fucking cool. You get Celaginella 715 00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:55,679 lepid affla. You get in those rocky habitats and Appalachia, you get quite 716 00:50:55,679 --> 00:51:01,840 a few different Silaginella species. They of course dry out completely and then just 717 00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:07,159 come back to life when they get wet. Lepidophila is the cool one with 718 00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:10,280 the rosette leaf, Selaginella lepidophala. But all this shit, I mean, 719 00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:14,000 there was so much good shit here to look at. And then of course 720 00:51:14,119 --> 00:51:19,760 this rock, this this calcareous sedimentary rock that had been tortured, and ah 721 00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,519 man, it was just fucking and slightly metamorphosed. It was just a fucking 722 00:51:23,679 --> 00:51:27,719 stunner. The whole habit that was just so cool. And this was the 723 00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,760 drought season. Strombo cactus was flowering because the cact i can do that. 724 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:35,599 They little batteries, they've got the juice stored up. They can flower during 725 00:51:35,639 --> 00:51:38,920 the dry season, which ensures that they're gonna get pollinated because not much else 726 00:51:39,039 --> 00:51:43,400 is able to flower. But again, this should be the start of the 727 00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,559 rainy season right now through October, and it's the rainy season in much of 728 00:51:46,679 --> 00:51:51,280 Mexico, and then the winters are dry off in a long dry period, 729 00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,719 and so that's why you get things that had you know, right, so 730 00:51:54,719 --> 00:52:00,840 why things evolve and edge up a way to cope with the long dry season. 731 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:04,239 Not really a desert, because they get quite a bit of rain when 732 00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,960 it does rain, you know, quite a bit. I mean obviously not 733 00:52:07,039 --> 00:52:10,039 if you're living in the Pacific Northwest, it's not quite a bit. But 734 00:52:10,639 --> 00:52:14,000 you know, I don't know what the average rainfall is for some of these 735 00:52:14,039 --> 00:52:15,920 areas, but I think it can be quite a bit because it will rain 736 00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:20,920 every afternoon, depending on what elevation you're at. But then you've got that 737 00:52:21,079 --> 00:52:24,239 long dry season because even though it'll be winter and it'll be less daylight hours, 738 00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:28,679 and say December or January, you're still at twenty degrees lat to north, 739 00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:30,679 so it's still pretty fucking high. You're still in the tropics. Oh 740 00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:35,000 yeah, Loaf Diffusa was flowering too. I forgot to mention that that was 741 00:52:35,119 --> 00:52:39,360 great to see, not a pink flower like the peyote cactus of South Texas 742 00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:44,920 and northern Mexico, but a white flower, white flower with a white stigma 743 00:52:45,159 --> 00:52:47,440 and yellow stamens. And then some of the teeples had like a little green 744 00:52:47,559 --> 00:52:52,119 striation in them, which was that was also pretty cool to see variation in 745 00:52:52,199 --> 00:52:57,119 flower color. I wonder what Pollinasa's Probably a lot of the same pollinators the 746 00:52:57,199 --> 00:53:01,360 pollinate peyote, probably some South hearry b and some fucking some of those that 747 00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:07,199 act me out era beetles that are just feasting on pollen, but no doubt 748 00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:12,199 they're surely coming into contact with the stigma and doing some pollination as well. 749 00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:20,159 And so what else was it that spot some moll Punthius species kind of cactus, 750 00:53:20,199 --> 00:53:24,800 plenty ofcanth this uh oh yeah. And the fucking composite that was growing 751 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:29,559 the member of Astaraci, the sunflower family, which is what I mean when 752 00:53:29,559 --> 00:53:32,679 I say composite, because they have a composite flower head that was so predominant 753 00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:37,440 in this habitat, especially along these sketchy, winding roads that I was fucking 754 00:53:37,599 --> 00:53:40,800 so nervous, right because Marco was driving too, and he was so stoked 755 00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:45,559 on the habit that and he's fucking looking I mean, he's rubbernecking like I 756 00:53:45,639 --> 00:53:49,400 would be. But holy shit, I'm sitting there, you know, sandwich 757 00:53:49,519 --> 00:53:52,679 between you know, the two old guys on either side, you know, 758 00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,559 Marco's dad and Augie's dad, and I'm just like, holy fuck, this 759 00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,760 man, please keep your eye on the road because it was such a narrow, 760 00:54:00,039 --> 00:54:04,840 sketchy road and it is this crumbly limestone. It could easily have gone 761 00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:07,440 off, you know. I'm sure, I'm sure one or two cars just 762 00:54:07,519 --> 00:54:12,519 taking a spill in the last fifty years. And it's a long way to 763 00:54:12,559 --> 00:54:14,880 the bottom, and it's a long way up to the top too. I 764 00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:20,239 mean, these are monoliths of fucking limestone, of uplifted, cooked limestone, 765 00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,519 and you're just driving on this sketchy little one lane road alongside of it en 766 00:54:23,559 --> 00:54:27,440 route to the canyon. But this plant that was everywhere, and I kept 767 00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:29,199 looking at it and being like, what the fuck? I thought it was 768 00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:34,320 almost a Fendleerra, which is in Hydrangeac. There's a couple cool fendlera species 769 00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:38,960 from gypsum outcrops and calcareous areas in the way Bolan. I thought it was 770 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:42,199 one of those. Just by looking at the leaves, I couldn't see any 771 00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:45,440 flowers up close. It wasn't flowering anyway. They were just spent inflorescences. 772 00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:51,320 It had these linear leaves, kind of wispy linear leaves, maybe two inches 773 00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:53,880 long, chalky mint green color. It was a three or four foot tall 774 00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:57,440 shrub. It was super dominant. It was everywhere, which made me, 775 00:54:57,679 --> 00:55:00,760 you know, so amped to figure out what the fuck it was. And 776 00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:01,800 I got up and was able to look at it. They're in a piss 777 00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:06,760 stop, and UH realized it was a composite. It was astracies, And 778 00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,039 then I had to go through and figure out what species it was. Turned 779 00:55:08,039 --> 00:55:15,280 out to be Discreto feminists phili Folius, discreto thamous Philipoius. I think there's 780 00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:21,880 only one other species in the genus. I'd love to be able to get 781 00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:23,960 it flowering. It's looks beautiful when it flowers. It almost looks like puce 782 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:29,519 Ofphylum Shaddya, which is a composite that looks like a juniper that you get 783 00:55:29,519 --> 00:55:32,679 in the Mojave Desert from southwestern Utah, because southwestern Utah is still the Mojave 784 00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:39,719 Desert all the way to eastern southeastern California. Beautiful plant Pusiphylum shaddy I shoot 785 00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:45,000 shots, pygmy cedar. They call it cedar. It's a cedar. No 786 00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:49,280 cedar or no true cedars are native to North America, but uh whatever, 787 00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:52,920 it's a common name, you know. North Americans say cedar. Australians say 788 00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:55,599 pine. Everything's a pine that looks like a conifer down in Australia, but 789 00:55:55,639 --> 00:56:00,760 there's no pines native to Australia and only one pine native to the Southern Hemisphere. 790 00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:06,920 It grows somewhere in Indonesia anyway. I digress looks like a banger of 791 00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:10,000 a plant when it's lit up. This was not lit up. It was 792 00:56:10,199 --> 00:56:15,880 just hanging in there waiting for the rain growing on these probably very stressful completely 793 00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:23,559 soil less limestone outcrops and rocky hillsides, and it is in let's I always 794 00:56:23,599 --> 00:56:27,760 do this. It's always important to do with astracy because it's such a huge 795 00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:31,320 family. It's like twenty eight thousand species, biggest plant family after the orchids, 796 00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:35,920 you gotta go to the taxonomy chart on Wikipedia, and you pay attention 797 00:56:36,119 --> 00:56:42,760 to all these subtaxa beneath subfamily, all these taxon levels like tribe, subtribe, 798 00:56:43,079 --> 00:56:47,119 et cetera, beneath beneath the subfamily. So with the subfamily was asteroidy 799 00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:52,679 one of the twelve or thirteen subfamilies of Astracy tribe, millary, subtribe, 800 00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:58,519 discreto family, you know, so it's got its own little taxonomic classification or 801 00:56:58,559 --> 00:57:05,199 you got sub Oh shit, Bebia is in subtribe discreto feminy, bebia Juncia, 802 00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:10,360 the notorious bebia Juncia, fucking goofy name. I love it though. 803 00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:20,280 It's a cool composite. Another desert composite from from Baja from like hard harsh 804 00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:25,440 deserts in Baja California, bebia Juncia. So it's same subtribe. So these 805 00:57:25,519 --> 00:57:30,480 things are all especially what's the Simafra. I don't know that one trite axe, 806 00:57:30,679 --> 00:57:34,480 Oh god, it's in the trites related to Tritax, the notorious Tritax 807 00:57:34,599 --> 00:57:37,880 procumbents, that fucking pain in the ass weed. And it's no offense to 808 00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:42,639 it's supposedly native here, but it's intensely weedy all over the world. First 809 00:57:42,679 --> 00:57:46,079 time I ever saw it was outside the Hong Kong Airport. I'm gonna mention 810 00:57:46,239 --> 00:57:51,480 it as one of the ruderal plant species in my next book, just because 811 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:54,039 it's so good at getting around. I would love it if it didn't piss 812 00:57:54,119 --> 00:57:57,519 me off so much and I didn't spend so much time removing it from my 813 00:57:57,599 --> 00:58:02,119 little cactus beds. You know, where I got ober Agonia and and thelocactus, 814 00:58:02,199 --> 00:58:07,199 et cetera. So, uh, then you get the Tetragonothica, which 815 00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,559 is that's actually a really cool one. I had no idea that was, 816 00:58:09,719 --> 00:58:15,159 uh, that was native to What the fuck that that was in this this 817 00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:20,559 clade. This was in subtribe discrete Authenity Tetragonalthica rapanda, which grows in the 818 00:58:20,639 --> 00:58:24,599 Texas sansche tech Tetragonalthica texts aena. You know, the more I look at 819 00:58:24,639 --> 00:58:30,559 all these floristic affinities, these these evolutionary groups and realize, oh, they've 820 00:58:30,559 --> 00:58:34,599 all got a certain biogeography to them. Most of them do. They occur 821 00:58:34,719 --> 00:58:38,119 over a certain area, like arid and hot regions of North America. The 822 00:58:38,239 --> 00:58:43,440 more I realize that these things have been evolving and spaciating, and their distributions 823 00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:46,599 and ranges have been shifting back and forth over however, many millions of years, 824 00:58:46,639 --> 00:58:52,000 and the more stupid it makes human beings luck with all their fucking geopolitical 825 00:58:52,039 --> 00:58:54,920 boundaries and stupid bullshit, and are just we have shut we have such short 826 00:58:55,000 --> 00:59:00,800 life spans, and we have such that causes us to have such short perspectives 827 00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:02,440 on the world. All right, even if you're not a complete fucking mouth 828 00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:07,039 breather and think the world has only been in existence for six thousand years, 829 00:59:07,079 --> 00:59:10,519 I mean that takes us fucking really special kind of stupid to believe that, 830 00:59:12,119 --> 00:59:17,639 or just complete complete illiteracy with reality. I guess you know, maybe what 831 00:59:17,719 --> 00:59:20,880 you do if you believe that, you just hang out in side watch soap 832 00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:22,440 operas all day, go to your job, get a little pet on the 833 00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:25,760 head from your boss, drive home, watch some dumb shit on TV. 834 00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:30,280 Pass ou't do it again. I don't know, no offense to anybody suffering 835 00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:34,679 that slow death. But anyway, the more I look at all this, 836 00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,760 you know, you realize what got me in a biogeography, You realize certain 837 00:59:38,239 --> 00:59:45,679 evolutionary groups of plants are indeed restricted to certain continents or certain regions, or 838 00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:49,840 they thrive in certain habitats, whatever, you know. And I remember when 839 00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:52,679 I was first learning botany, I was so perplexed that why one genus could 840 00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:57,639 be found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. And then with you know, 841 00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:00,039 this is right, I was like learning by like the twenty ten, 842 01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:07,400 right when PCR and molecular analysis and molecular sequencing was becoming more apparent. And 843 01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:12,840 then of course, sure enough, many of these genera like Kupressus and Hespero 844 01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:17,159 Cyprus, you know, got split up, like the genus Copressus got split 845 01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:22,519 up. It turned out all the cypresses in North America were different from the 846 01:00:22,599 --> 01:00:27,159 cypresses in Europe and Asia. No shit, the Atlantic Ocean's fucking big. 847 01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:31,719 That's three thousand miles is a big barrier to gene flow, good cause for 848 01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:37,599 isolation. So you know, obviously there was This is a different lineage, 849 01:00:37,719 --> 01:00:42,840 probably still closely related, probably sister genera though don't quote me on it, 850 01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:49,039 but it's had enough time for it to be for it to differ enough both 851 01:00:49,119 --> 01:00:53,239 morphologically, which it does. I mean, I could tell the North American 852 01:00:53,280 --> 01:00:59,239 cypresses from the European cypresses especially they've got different kind of leading numbers as well 853 01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:05,159 as molecular molecular sinnapomorphies. You hold those those DNA barcodes up through each other 854 01:01:05,559 --> 01:01:09,000 and uh, they don't match up that well, it's not actually how it 855 01:01:09,119 --> 01:01:14,119 works, but that's a good metaphor. So anyway, that was again. 856 01:01:14,239 --> 01:01:15,920 You know, a lot of plants that I that I know in South Texas 857 01:01:16,239 --> 01:01:21,920 also occur down in Mexico and these regions where we were at these but higher 858 01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:25,440 elevations, you know, I mean we were, like I said, we 859 01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:30,079 were at like five thousand feet or above for most of the last week. 860 01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:36,679 And I don't think a lot of people in the United States even know that. 861 01:01:37,679 --> 01:01:39,760 There's a lot of shit. People in the US don't even know. 862 01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:44,840 Like you don't have to be confined to a fucking automobile your whole life. 863 01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:51,519 That's strictly a United States thing. So anyway, it's fucking bleak. So 864 01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:53,559 uh yeah, I just learned something new too. Tetragonal thigue is in the 865 01:01:53,599 --> 01:01:58,800 same subtribe as discretal famous discreto thamous is now my goddamn radar. I'm fucking 866 01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:02,559 app to see it. Let's see what the range of it is. Yeah, 867 01:02:02,559 --> 01:02:09,159 it's just the Discreto Thamnist Philifolius and discreto Theamnist Mirandi Mirandi, which is 868 01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:15,480 also a montane desert composite. It seems like God, I fucking love deserts. 869 01:02:15,599 --> 01:02:20,360 Only three or four observations on I naturalis, which someone took some really 870 01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:25,639 good photos. Yeah, it's got broader leaves and it also waxy chalky shows 871 01:02:25,639 --> 01:02:31,559 an adaptation to aridity and grows out of fucking rock faces, which is I'm 872 01:02:31,599 --> 01:02:36,360 already turned on. I'm already I already want to know more, but I'm 873 01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,920 have to go check out the screto Theamnist Mirandi. So anyway, it was 874 01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:43,079 funny man at Yeah, that that Stevia that I saw, that waxy ass 875 01:02:43,079 --> 01:02:47,639 Stevia. I collected a little about your specimen of uh. Only the only 876 01:02:47,719 --> 01:02:52,119 person to have seen it before was Alan Rockefeller, and thank god he takes 877 01:02:52,239 --> 01:02:55,400 I think he's got more observations on in at of plants than he does of 878 01:02:55,559 --> 01:03:00,840 mushrooms. And him and Mandy Cork were just featured in the New York Times 879 01:03:00,119 --> 01:03:05,039 an article they made the papers first secret, you're all doing all this sequence 880 01:03:05,079 --> 01:03:07,920 and stuff. I don't know what they're doing over there, But go check 881 01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:09,079 it out. What was the name of the damn article? Let me look 882 01:03:09,119 --> 01:03:13,480 this up. Okay, there we go. I found the article. New 883 01:03:13,599 --> 01:03:15,559 York Times wants me to buy a subscription. I'm not gonna do that. 884 01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:22,000 Instead, I'm gonna go to archive dot pH and I'm gonna type in the 885 01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:29,559 copy and paste the link and I'll get a free read of this this website 886 01:03:29,559 --> 01:03:32,199 anyway, here it is. The mushroom hunters can't stop finding mysterious fungi. 887 01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:37,079 For years, my colleges and hobbyists alike have been using DNA sequencing unforged FUNI. 888 01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:43,280 If only plants were this easy to DNA sequence. They're not. Unfortunately, 889 01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:45,239 they're kind of a pain in the ass. But someone out there is 890 01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:49,400 going to do what Allan did with mushrooms, and they're not going to be 891 01:03:49,559 --> 01:03:52,679 some college kid. No offense to the college kids, even though I have 892 01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:55,039 talked to my fair share of shit. No, a lot of cool college 893 01:03:55,119 --> 01:04:00,960 kids hashtag not all college kids. I just think it's fucking It can be 894 01:04:01,239 --> 01:04:06,519 a little bubble sometimes, and it's undeniable that there's a link between class and 895 01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:15,320 being in higher education for ten years. But I'm not saying you can't, 896 01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:16,760 you know, you can't have your wits about you and still be in higher 897 01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:21,239 education. But I'm just saying, anyway, someone's gonna do that with plants 898 01:04:21,239 --> 01:04:26,840 and hopefully figure out a way to you know, sequence shit, collect collect 899 01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:34,280 material and sequence plant material really easily comparatively speaking, relatively speaking, and be 900 01:04:34,360 --> 01:04:39,800 able to do what Alan does you know? Sequence plants upload sequences, the 901 01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:44,920 gen bank, know what gene regions to look at, chloroplast, mitochondrial, 902 01:04:45,159 --> 01:04:49,639 nuclear, DNA, et cetera. But you know, right now, I 903 01:04:49,679 --> 01:04:55,159 think plants the tissue. There's just there's so many other secondary metabolites and waxes 904 01:04:55,239 --> 01:04:58,559 and compounds in there that can be it can make it kind of a pain 905 01:04:58,639 --> 01:05:00,760 in the ass. But I don't know. Could someone set up a basement 906 01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:03,760 lab to sequence sequence? Fun? Guy? You know you get a how 907 01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:09,760 much? Is a how much? Just a PCR machine? Oh god? 908 01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:17,760 Anyway, Yeah, cool article. So photographs by Rachel Bajewski, text by 909 01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:23,000 Veronic Greenwood and check that out. Oh they think they got a nice photo 910 01:05:23,039 --> 01:05:27,559 of Alan and Mandy in their their basement lab. Gotta ask him how I 911 01:05:27,639 --> 01:05:30,119 always forget? He tells me how he gets his soda stream going without buying 912 01:05:30,119 --> 01:05:32,679 a refills. He uses like a tank, a CO two tank. He 913 01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,880 buys some a welding supply shop, and then a little valve so he can 914 01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:40,880 refill his own soda stream. I need to figure out how to do that, 915 01:05:41,159 --> 01:05:43,679 which I think is not that hard. I've just been lazy and have 916 01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:45,440 not had time to look into it, along with the nine hundred other things 917 01:05:45,960 --> 01:05:48,920 I try to do every day. God damn it, it's already fucking six 918 01:05:49,039 --> 01:05:51,440 pm in the afternoon, speaking of which, then I get stressed out and 919 01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:56,599 I get mad, you know. So anyway, I'll finish this up. 920 01:05:56,639 --> 01:06:00,239 Then we're gonna I gotta go fucking edit videos and then uh and then hang 921 01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:04,519 out, hang out with my daughter. So anyway, so more little the 922 01:06:04,559 --> 01:06:11,039 story is always pay attention to elevation and latitude whenever you're traveling and doing botany. 923 01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:14,519 Always keep notes, all right, put that shit in the eye naturalist 924 01:06:15,079 --> 01:06:21,079 observation notes and discretothemis is a cool composite. So anyway, So next stop 925 01:06:23,199 --> 01:06:30,880 on this little trip was another crusty a crusty and crispy hillside filled with the 926 01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:36,119 hectiaglomorata and morlafofer the fusub populations as well as astrophytum or natum, which doesn't 927 01:06:36,119 --> 01:06:39,760 look like an astrophytum at all. The only thing that gives it away is 928 01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:45,599 being an astrophytum. Are those tricombs, These little bundles of tricombs that almost 929 01:06:45,639 --> 01:06:50,000 look like scales or white dots on the epidermal tissue. Astrophytum is theorious. 930 01:06:50,159 --> 01:06:55,559 Of course, star cactus sandalakgas has a bunch of them, or Natum's got 931 01:06:55,559 --> 01:06:59,639 a few of them. But ornatum also has spines. So astrophytum has been 932 01:06:59,679 --> 01:07:08,360 doing some weird shit evolutionarily. Everybody knows. Maybe astrophytum could put medoci formerly 933 01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:17,360 digital stigma looked so fucking different and unique from astrophytom Census strict though that that 934 01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:21,599 it was just you know, it wasn't thought to be related at all. 935 01:07:21,679 --> 01:07:26,440 I mean, these tubercles have been elongated into what looked like octopus tentacles. 936 01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:30,599 It's such a weird plant that it was only described twenty five years ago by 937 01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:35,639 my guy, Carlos Velasco. And I forget the was it Paeder, I 938 01:07:35,679 --> 01:07:39,760 forget the guy's name. I'm sorry, and I can't look it up right 939 01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:43,480 now and all the time. But anyway, this whole, this whole habitat 940 01:07:43,559 --> 01:07:47,440 was cool. Was everything was super drought stressed. Some of the non mescaline 941 01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:54,559 containing peyotier, the fusa were dying back. They were sunburned. But it 942 01:07:54,679 --> 01:07:57,039 also started to rain on us while we were there a little bit, which 943 01:07:57,119 --> 01:07:59,639 was great, and it looked like it might have been just enough to soak 944 01:07:59,679 --> 01:08:02,039 in a little bit, so hopefully those plants got some nourishment. There was 945 01:08:02,199 --> 01:08:08,719 a punch of macrodaises there, which doesn't have spines, just those yellow glockids. 946 01:08:08,760 --> 01:08:11,519 It's frequently sold, you know, cuttings of it are sold in like 947 01:08:11,599 --> 01:08:15,960 the home despot garden section is like a little you know, window sill plant. 948 01:08:16,680 --> 01:08:23,680 But the substrate here was like rocky calcareous. It was rocky and calcareous. 949 01:08:24,279 --> 01:08:27,840 It was all limestone, maybe some calcareous sandstone and shale had kind of 950 01:08:27,880 --> 01:08:33,399 a red color to it, maybe some iron oxidation from whatever environment that these 951 01:08:33,439 --> 01:08:38,960 sediments were originally deposited in one hundred million fucking years ago. But then there 952 01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:42,680 were areas where it was just kind of like this this silty mud, which 953 01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:45,439 is not surprising because that's kind of what limestone does. It breaks down into 954 01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:50,159 silty mud, into like a powdery clay, and so that of course is 955 01:08:50,239 --> 01:08:55,560 a huge giveaway if you're looking at a soil profile, especially in an arid 956 01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:59,560 climate, of what that soil came from. If it's like this powdery white 957 01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:04,039 stuff or pottery and gray, it probably originated from limestone, from a calcareous 958 01:09:04,079 --> 01:09:09,720 substrate. And it's especially probably got a little bit of salt in it too, 959 01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:14,119 especially if you're in a desert, because the water just evaporates so fast. 960 01:09:14,199 --> 01:09:16,560 The water reacts with the rocks, weathers them, brings in some of 961 01:09:16,600 --> 01:09:20,399 that some of those minerals, and then the water evaporates and leaves the minerals 962 01:09:20,439 --> 01:09:24,640 behind, and now you just got this calichi shit. It's like this, 963 01:09:25,399 --> 01:09:29,239 you know, mineral deposits, but hard water basically same shit you see on 964 01:09:29,319 --> 01:09:31,039 a spigot. If you live in a limestone air, If you live in 965 01:09:31,039 --> 01:09:34,279 a limestone air like much of Texas is, you probably have hard water. 966 01:09:34,560 --> 01:09:40,159 There's probably high mineral content in your water, which is you know, when 967 01:09:40,159 --> 01:09:44,319 I was hanging out with those carnivorous plant nerds, that the carnivorous plant nursery 968 01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:46,119 all fucking awesome people. I gotta send them all shirts do I have? 969 01:09:46,279 --> 01:09:51,279 Like I told all the employees I was gonna send them shirts. I will 970 01:09:51,319 --> 01:09:54,840 like seven or eight shirts. I just haven't been able to get around to 971 01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:57,159 it. So if you listen to this, I'm sorry. I got you, 972 01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:00,560 I promised to get you. Just give me some fucking time. Right. 973 01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:01,920 The postage on that alone is going to be like fifty bucks, so 974 01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:05,319 I'm probably gonna wait till I can drive it up next time. I stopped 975 01:10:05,319 --> 01:10:11,399 by Carnivoro, but they told me to get a TDS meter total dissolved solids 976 01:10:11,439 --> 01:10:14,079 meter, which you could buy an Amazon for fifteen bucks. I did it, 977 01:10:14,680 --> 01:10:15,840 and I tested the water out of the spiggot where I live. It 978 01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:19,000 was like five hundred and fifty parts per million, which is terrible, which 979 01:10:19,079 --> 01:10:23,479 explains the terrible taste. And then I had this like I got an ro 980 01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:26,199 unit like under my sink, like one of those. It's like a couple 981 01:10:26,279 --> 01:10:28,520 hundred bucks, you know, because of water. I just I drink a 982 01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:30,319 lot of water, make a lot of tea, a lot of mate hibiscus 983 01:10:30,399 --> 01:10:34,119 tea, green tea, whatever. I can't be drinking that shit water all 984 01:10:34,199 --> 01:10:38,800 the time. So and I tested that. It just uses these two prongs 985 01:10:38,840 --> 01:10:41,760 to measure the current between these two metal prongs. You stick it in the 986 01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:45,279 water, and it was like fifteen parts per million at the ro water the 987 01:10:45,359 --> 01:10:48,960 drinking water out of the side spigot on the sink versus five fifty parts per 988 01:10:49,000 --> 01:10:55,560 million out of the main spigot. Big difference. I'm a believer. And 989 01:10:55,680 --> 01:10:57,800 so after that, we just lurked here for a while. It was a 990 01:10:57,840 --> 01:11:00,159 beautiful spot, but uh, we were kind of getting rushed. And then 991 01:11:00,279 --> 01:11:04,640 we went to and I was just following. I wasn't calling shots, I 992 01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:08,399 wasn't making decisions. I was just a long for the ride. I got 993 01:11:08,479 --> 01:11:10,600 invited. They were kind enough to invite me, so I went with. 994 01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:15,039 And then next spot we went to. You know, I'm taking pictures of 995 01:11:15,159 --> 01:11:17,279 rock outcrops and road cuts, so much good shit. Man, if it 996 01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:20,079 thank god I wasn't in charge, because I would have stopped. I would 997 01:11:20,119 --> 01:11:23,039 not have been able to see all this shit in one day. I would 998 01:11:23,039 --> 01:11:30,319 have stopped too much. I moved way too slow. And so after that, 999 01:11:30,439 --> 01:11:33,399 yeah, we stopped and we went to this A kind of cactus played 1000 01:11:33,399 --> 01:11:39,840 at Cantus spot. This old man runs this little like eco tour thing in 1001 01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:43,680 the back of his house. He's kind of a caretaker for this plot where 1002 01:11:43,720 --> 01:11:45,760 there's like three hundred and four hundred year old biz nagas nine foot tall. 1003 01:11:46,159 --> 01:11:51,479 It kind of cactus pladyacanthus, the Martillo cactus were looking stressed. There was 1004 01:11:51,640 --> 01:11:58,720 Pharo cactus led A spinus. There really broad, broad spined pharaoh cactus, 1005 01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:02,960 but of course it had those beautif full pink spines to a beautiful pink betl 1006 01:12:02,960 --> 01:12:08,239 ane pigments in the spines. There was Mammalaria elongatta, and that was cool 1007 01:12:08,319 --> 01:12:11,640 to see because that's common in cultivation. It's always cool to see the habitat 1008 01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:17,000 that these plants, you know, come from where they evolved. And so 1009 01:12:17,159 --> 01:12:24,199 Mamialary elongata longer longer central spines than radio spines, creates a little net over 1010 01:12:24,279 --> 01:12:27,920 its stem comes off like a golden color, kind of like a like a 1011 01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:34,279 urine gold color, and it's clumping multiple stems. Stino Sirius quasta kinda was 1012 01:12:34,319 --> 01:12:39,079 there too. Love this Steno sirius. Me and Marco ended up stopping at 1013 01:12:39,119 --> 01:12:45,279 a Steno Sirius carateraroensis individual that was just outside of town. One of the 1014 01:12:45,359 --> 01:12:47,960 times that we drove through and had fruit on it. We you know, 1015 01:12:48,359 --> 01:12:51,960 he fucking we went down into the wash, got a stick, found a 1016 01:12:53,039 --> 01:12:57,279 little spot where there was a fork in the branch, and he just like, 1017 01:12:57,520 --> 01:13:00,159 just like a natural, you know, just like a natural like you 1018 01:13:00,319 --> 01:13:03,520 was, you know, grew up in Wahaka and in a countryside of Wahaka 1019 01:13:03,600 --> 01:13:09,159 or something, was able to just pluck these fruits off. And that was 1020 01:13:09,239 --> 01:13:14,520 that's like a prized fucking you know food plant. Uh, those pataiahs, 1021 01:13:14,560 --> 01:13:17,279 those fruits are so good, tons of tiny little black seeds inside. So 1022 01:13:17,479 --> 01:13:23,720 Stino Sirius squas takana was also cool, but it doesn't get as big. 1023 01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:26,760 I had a much dif informed to it. The myrtillo cactus were so stressed. 1024 01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:30,079 That was so wild to me to see. And there were legumes everywhere, 1025 01:13:30,159 --> 01:13:33,039 these like humanous shrubs, probably mimosoids, of course, because that's what 1026 01:13:33,159 --> 01:13:35,800 most of them are, you know, as opposed to faboid e. It's 1027 01:13:36,239 --> 01:13:42,119 the mimosa subfamily mimo soidi of the Pa family. For BASI, most of 1028 01:13:42,199 --> 01:13:48,039 the really drought tolerant legumes tend to be mimosoids. So but they were everywhere, 1029 01:13:48,079 --> 01:13:50,479 but we couldn't I couldn't really tell what they were because they were all 1030 01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:56,960 leafless and drought deciduous and waiting for the rain. So these epic thunderstorms going 1031 01:13:57,039 --> 01:14:00,199 off too, like just coming in so but you don't know if it's going 1032 01:14:00,239 --> 01:14:01,000 to hit you or not. You can see it in the distance, you 1033 01:14:01,039 --> 01:14:04,960 don't know it's actually gonna come your way or not. Another cool thing that 1034 01:14:05,039 --> 01:14:08,760 I noticed, and this is forgive me, I forgot. I forgot this 1035 01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:12,079 at the Strombokeck. The spot was a kind of serious Penthalopis. But it 1036 01:14:12,199 --> 01:14:15,520 was a different subspecies and it looked way different than the ones that we get 1037 01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:19,159 in South Texas. So again you have this broad range throughout, you know, 1038 01:14:19,399 --> 01:14:25,600 this whole region of North America that of course disobeys any geopolitical boundaries of 1039 01:14:25,640 --> 01:14:29,399 course, because they're fucking stupid and people just made them up. And so 1040 01:14:30,039 --> 01:14:34,159 this was a different ecotype that is a subspecies that's much much broader. So 1041 01:14:34,239 --> 01:14:36,600 it was just I mean, there's so many cases like that, And you 1042 01:14:36,640 --> 01:14:43,199 can go from South Texas to Central Mexico, so many floristic affinities, so 1043 01:14:43,319 --> 01:14:49,520 many of the same plant plant species exist in completely different habitats in different elevations, 1044 01:14:50,479 --> 01:14:53,159 and then you go the same thing. You go to West Texas, 1045 01:14:53,199 --> 01:14:56,680 you see the same thing, right, slightly different ecotypes. That's you know, 1046 01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:00,960 no shit in its natural selection of play. They've been there for long 1047 01:15:00,039 --> 01:15:08,199 enough that the the lineage has been shaped and sculpted by the surrounding environment in 1048 01:15:08,239 --> 01:15:12,319 different aspects of the surrounding environment. But anyway, it was pretty pretty cool 1049 01:15:12,319 --> 01:15:16,479 to see. So anyway, Mammalaria magnum mamma was at this kind of serious 1050 01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:20,960 platycanthus spot just looked like little, a little spiny nest on the ground. 1051 01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:27,560 You could, you know, almost hiding all of its epidermal tissue buried, 1052 01:15:27,640 --> 01:15:30,640 you know, half subterranean too. How about that? I just popped a 1053 01:15:30,680 --> 01:15:33,880 little spine out of my thigh. I guess I've been carrying it around for 1054 01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:40,439 the past week and a half. So the next day and this was fucking 1055 01:15:41,000 --> 01:15:44,399 this was so fucking cool. We were in Guanajuato. We stayed in Guanajuada 1056 01:15:44,520 --> 01:15:49,199 City that night. Really cool city, very old, very beautiful, uh 1057 01:15:49,520 --> 01:15:53,600 just super rich, nice walk uble streets. Don't have to be trapped in 1058 01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:58,199 a fucking car, get to walk around just totally you know, everything a 1059 01:15:58,279 --> 01:16:02,119 city should be mentally stimulate, being walkable, rich, diverse, filled with 1060 01:16:02,199 --> 01:16:09,880 all kinds of different interesting things to occupy your time with. You know, 1061 01:16:09,960 --> 01:16:11,680 if you don't have to work, if you get like a day off, 1062 01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:13,800 you can just go fucking I mean, god, it was. Man, 1063 01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:15,520 that's like with New York City. But like, how many cities in the 1064 01:16:15,640 --> 01:16:19,399 United States can you do that? Not very many. You know, there's 1065 01:16:19,439 --> 01:16:25,960 good public transit, and it was just impractical to drive. The city is 1066 01:16:26,039 --> 01:16:29,600 so old, it's just completely impractical to drive. People do it. Of 1067 01:16:29,680 --> 01:16:32,399 course, Mexico City was like that too. I can't believe people drive in 1068 01:16:32,479 --> 01:16:35,920 Mexico City. It's a fucking nightmare. I mean, you end up taking 1069 01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:40,319 the same amount of time as you would to walk because there's so much traffic. 1070 01:16:40,399 --> 01:16:43,800 And of course the traffic makes everything smell like a parking garage, Like 1071 01:16:43,880 --> 01:16:47,680 the lower level of a parking garage is fucking brutal. God, I hate 1072 01:16:47,720 --> 01:16:53,640 to know how many years people are losing off their lives by breathing that air 1073 01:16:54,239 --> 01:16:57,760 every day. But anyway, gorgeous city, super old it was. You 1074 01:16:57,840 --> 01:17:01,880 know, it was a mining town in this the fucking Spanish and fifteen hundreds 1075 01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:08,319 and you know, just god, what a beautiful, beautiful city anyway, 1076 01:17:08,399 --> 01:17:11,760 So but I just looked there. So the next day, just me and 1077 01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:15,039 Gabrielle and Mark and everybody stay behind me, Gabrielle and a mirror. I 1078 01:17:15,159 --> 01:17:19,479 went out, drove to a mountain range to go look for this rare mammalaria 1079 01:17:19,560 --> 01:17:23,680 species. And I just wanted to botanize. I just I mean, we 1080 01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:26,319 were at eight thousand feet. I just wanted to see what was growing up 1081 01:17:26,359 --> 01:17:30,840 in these nice mountains. And these mountains looked like Chirikawa National Monument. It 1082 01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:34,319 was rhyolite, and for some reason, rhyolite, which is an extrusive igneous 1083 01:17:34,439 --> 01:17:39,199 rock. It's a volcanic rock, high silica, okay, and the spectrum 1084 01:17:39,319 --> 01:17:43,960 of extrusive igneous rocks, it's opposite basalts on the other side of the spectrum 1085 01:17:43,960 --> 01:17:50,039 from basalt. Basalt is a a maffic magma. It's got magnesium and iron 1086 01:17:50,119 --> 01:17:55,119 in it, and it's comparatively low in silica. Rhyolite is opposite, and 1087 01:17:55,319 --> 01:18:00,239 it's high silica, more high silica magma. And so when this is a 1088 01:18:00,279 --> 01:18:03,720 magma it blows up. It's more viscous. That silica makes it more like 1089 01:18:03,760 --> 01:18:09,159 a putty than a fluid. You see pictures of like Hawaiian volcanoes where they're 1090 01:18:09,239 --> 01:18:12,239 running, it's like a river of lava. That's not this stuff. That's 1091 01:18:12,279 --> 01:18:15,600 not rhyolite, that's basalt, that's a very fluid magma. It's that maffic 1092 01:18:15,880 --> 01:18:20,760 shit magnesium and iron fie being the symbol for iron. You know. Then 1093 01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:25,479 of course you go further down that way you get ultramafic, which is the 1094 01:18:25,520 --> 01:18:31,960 serpentine, the peridotite, the gabro et cetera. Serpentine's metamorphic gabbro is extrusive, 1095 01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:36,159 is it exactly? I have to look. Peridotite is intrusive. So 1096 01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:41,760 you know, anyway, we just quick geology rehash. You know, Extrusive 1097 01:18:41,840 --> 01:18:45,199 cools on the surface. Intrusive cools slowly underground. Right, Granite cool slowly 1098 01:18:45,279 --> 01:18:51,359 underground. Rhyolite cools quickly on the surface, same generally same chemical composition. 1099 01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:56,439 Though, oh yeah, gabro is intrusive. I think, what the fuck? 1100 01:18:56,479 --> 01:19:00,359 I don't know. Anyway, The point is this was the high silica 1101 01:19:00,399 --> 01:19:03,880 magma, very explosive. In the case of Cherchaiwa National Monument, it was 1102 01:19:04,720 --> 01:19:10,920 the Turkey Creek volcanic area, the Turkey Neck volcanic area. Don't get your 1103 01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:15,039 Turkey neck caught in the window of the car as you're rolling up the windows 1104 01:19:15,520 --> 01:19:21,720 to moon to moon the people at the fucking homemakers convention that I don't know 1105 01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:28,159 anyway. So, uh, Turkey Creek volcanic area. Is it Turkey Creek 1106 01:19:28,199 --> 01:19:30,399 the one in southeastern Arizona, I don't know anyway. It's a famous Miocene 1107 01:19:30,960 --> 01:19:36,680 or Late Oligasine volcanic explosion that caused these really cool uh. I guess the 1108 01:19:38,000 --> 01:19:42,640 common name form is hoodoos. But these really cool rock formations. And it's 1109 01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:45,439 just the way that the rhyolite weathers, you know, and the way that 1110 01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:49,800 it cools, and then those fractures as it cools and contracts, those fractures 1111 01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:56,720 later get exploited by weather and fra by rain and wind and frost, et 1112 01:19:56,800 --> 01:20:03,399 cetera. Freestylescles whatever and them to weather into these like towers. It's fucking 1113 01:20:03,479 --> 01:20:09,439 beautiful, really cool. We go hiking up there and I'm just stoe, 1114 01:20:09,520 --> 01:20:14,079 I'm stoked. I'm already. There's Arctostaphlos pungens, the really common manzanita all 1115 01:20:14,079 --> 01:20:19,800 over Mexico. There's camaro stapflus palafolia, which just has this beautiful form to 1116 01:20:19,920 --> 01:20:25,239 it and grows kind of like some of those weird new Caledonia plants or like 1117 01:20:25,399 --> 01:20:30,159 Brazilian sahato plants like monoculus and long branches and no leaves. It's a shrub 1118 01:20:30,199 --> 01:20:34,039 but like long branches, kind of like forking candelabras style, no leaves in 1119 01:20:34,079 --> 01:20:38,640 the bottom half of the plant. And because it's one of these our buttoid 1120 01:20:39,359 --> 01:20:45,079 eric Casey, eric Casey being the blueberry family and our Buttoid being the subfamily, 1121 01:20:45,439 --> 01:20:48,880 the madrone and manzanita subfamily, it's got this beautiful red bark just like 1122 01:20:48,920 --> 01:20:54,920 our beautists and like Manzanita aka Arcto Stafflos so it's got this beautiful red, 1123 01:20:55,000 --> 01:20:59,439 smooth bark. But it was so fucking dry, you know. They things 1124 01:20:59,439 --> 01:21:02,039 had flower probably in spring, and then it was so dry that the flowers 1125 01:21:02,119 --> 01:21:05,159 just aborted and they were still dried and crispy on the plant. There was 1126 01:21:05,159 --> 01:21:12,960 also Pinus embroidies there, which is a pinion pine and they're actually farming it 1127 01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:16,159 throughout the region, So they're farming a native plant. I guess some of 1128 01:21:16,199 --> 01:21:21,880 them are kind of cartel operated pine nut fields. Really they got really got 1129 01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:26,720 their hands and everything. You know, they're branching out into Etsy stores now, 1130 01:21:26,760 --> 01:21:30,960 the cartels are creating Etsy stores where you can go get your own hand 1131 01:21:30,079 --> 01:21:35,920 crafted you know, earrings and bracelets of different jewelry, et cetera. They 1132 01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:40,640 really, you know, they're got their hands in every market. So, 1133 01:21:41,119 --> 01:21:43,840 but Pinus embroidies is native here. It's kind of a small, well, 1134 01:21:43,920 --> 01:21:47,479 it's not a small pinion. There were some They don't grow straight up, 1135 01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:50,520 I'll tell you that. You know, they were at a certain They do 1136 01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:53,840 to a certain age, and then they kind of go all over the place 1137 01:21:53,880 --> 01:21:57,159 and have more of the form of an oak tree, kind of sprawling beautiful 1138 01:21:57,239 --> 01:22:01,159 pine. Nonetheless, and they've got really distincts pinion pine cones, which if 1139 01:22:01,159 --> 01:22:05,640 you've ever seen a pinion pine like Pinus monophile or Pinus edulus in the United 1140 01:22:05,680 --> 01:22:10,720 States, you know, these are like squat little cones loaded with delicious seeds 1141 01:22:11,000 --> 01:22:17,159 and you make some pesto. This plant probably had a relationship with birds, 1142 01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:20,640 you know, little jay's or corvatte is some kind that you know, would 1143 01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:26,079 collect the seeds and then stash them somewhere and forget where they stashed them, 1144 01:22:26,159 --> 01:22:30,359 and fucking then you get new trees popping up, but this ecosystem very obviously 1145 01:22:30,439 --> 01:22:35,119 looked stressed. Mexico's in a drought. Climate change is real and happening, 1146 01:22:35,159 --> 01:22:38,399 and so it was kind of you know, I was just thinking about all 1147 01:22:38,399 --> 01:22:41,039 this shit while I was walking up there is God, Like, what are 1148 01:22:41,079 --> 01:22:44,680 these mountains seen? You know, what are the people that used to live 1149 01:22:44,760 --> 01:22:48,199 here? Like? What things were here? You know at any point in 1150 01:22:48,199 --> 01:22:51,399 the last ten thousand years that are not here anymore, plants or animals, 1151 01:22:51,439 --> 01:22:57,760 it's that have gone extinct or there, you know, distribution has contracted due 1152 01:22:57,800 --> 01:23:02,800 to human activity whatever. On the way up, we saw Bishornia rigida, 1153 01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:08,720 which is you know Bishornia. It's got like a pink pink inflorescence, pink 1154 01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:13,239 flowers. This is it's the whole How many species of Bishornia are there? 1155 01:23:13,279 --> 01:23:15,560 Actually, let me look this up now there's quite a few. Uh it's 1156 01:23:15,760 --> 01:23:18,520 I only know it from cultivation. It used to get planted a lot in 1157 01:23:18,640 --> 01:23:23,279 the Bay Area. Not this species, but the genus. There's some really 1158 01:23:23,279 --> 01:23:27,520 beautiful ones. Maybe that was Bishornia yakoid's that I saw. I can't remember 1159 01:23:27,680 --> 01:23:31,640 that it was common in Bay Area cultivation, but it's got those pink inflorescences, 1160 01:23:31,720 --> 01:23:36,199 and even the peduncle is pink, so it was and a lot of 1161 01:23:36,239 --> 01:23:39,840 the species, so it's it's notable. You could see why it gets used 1162 01:23:39,880 --> 01:23:44,760 in horticulture. Family asparagacy, subfamily agavoid E. The agave subfamily used to 1163 01:23:44,800 --> 01:23:48,840 be agabac till apg fucked the asparagus family in the ass and created this really 1164 01:23:48,920 --> 01:23:54,920 confusing taxonomy, which I'll forever curse them for. But yeah, nine species 1165 01:23:55,000 --> 01:23:59,520 of Bishornia albiflora, Calcicola, Dubia rigidus A, tantry Analys, Tuba Flora 1166 01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:05,640 righty and yacoities and this was Rigida, so it was great to see that 1167 01:24:05,880 --> 01:24:12,319 man fucking beautiful plant. The fruits were even pink too, but it's kind 1168 01:24:12,319 --> 01:24:15,319 of scabbard leaves, but they weren't stiff like in a gave. They were 1169 01:24:15,439 --> 01:24:19,479 kind of like fibrous, you know, like uh like uh fuck? Why 1170 01:24:19,479 --> 01:24:24,000 am I like formium? Like the genus Formium, which is in New Zealand 1171 01:24:24,039 --> 01:24:28,920 and also gets used in California horticulture way too much. It was funny going 1172 01:24:29,039 --> 01:24:33,279 up the mountain too. We encountered this dude carrying a rifle walking down with 1173 01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:38,359 like ten dogs. He'd been up there hunting pigs, I guess, And 1174 01:24:38,560 --> 01:24:41,439 uh god, it was fucking hilarious. Man. The guy was super chill, 1175 01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:43,960 really friendly. I asked if he wanted water. He didn't. He 1176 01:24:44,079 --> 01:24:47,600 was all he was all prepped already. But he pulled these he found a 1177 01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:50,880 deer that was very obviously already dead. I mean, when he pulled these 1178 01:24:51,319 --> 01:24:56,079 deer legs out of his bag, could fucking he could knock a horse over 1179 01:24:56,199 --> 01:25:00,399 with the smell. But uh, you know, we stopped and shot the 1180 01:25:00,399 --> 01:25:02,880 ship for like five six minutes. But it was just funny when he had 1181 01:25:02,920 --> 01:25:08,600 like these ten really sweet dogs just like following him, just like walking through 1182 01:25:08,640 --> 01:25:13,560 the mountains, like you know, really remote area, and uh, it 1183 01:25:13,760 --> 01:25:17,479 was just just a funny fucking spot. It was cool. There was a 1184 01:25:17,680 --> 01:25:20,199 there was a dam at this spot, or there had been. It was 1185 01:25:20,319 --> 01:25:25,920 totally dry now, but at some point, probably in much wetter times, 1186 01:25:26,359 --> 01:25:30,600 they had been holding water back with, you know, with this this little 1187 01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:34,680 earth in this rock dam. Right where the dam was was Garia species. 1188 01:25:34,720 --> 01:25:39,000 Now this is cool to me because Garya. Again we're going with the you 1189 01:25:39,079 --> 01:25:43,880 know, knowing having an understanding of a genus or a evolutionary lineage, the 1190 01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:48,399 floristic affinities. Garya occurs both in the Sky Islands, the Dominican Republican the 1191 01:25:48,479 --> 01:25:54,079 cloud forests up there, where it's very wet and generally cool, and also 1192 01:25:54,159 --> 01:25:59,880 occurs in the San Francisco Bay area. It's a weird, long, long, 1193 01:26:00,039 --> 01:26:04,760 but it's a lonely branch on the angiosperm family tree. So if you 1194 01:26:04,840 --> 01:26:11,720 look at the angiosperm phylogeny jart, which you can get from plant gateway dot 1195 01:26:11,840 --> 01:26:16,359 com forward slash poster, which I suggest he gets a thirty eight megabyte PDF 1196 01:26:16,720 --> 01:26:24,359 file of the whole flowering plant family tree, gary Aales. The order comes 1197 01:26:24,439 --> 01:26:33,920 out next to Gentianales and a really weird order called Metheniusales. Metheniu sac is 1198 01:26:34,039 --> 01:26:40,960 the family in Metheniusales, which is I think mostly tropical genera. I think 1199 01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:44,560 there's like, I don't know, with ten ten to twelve genera in it. 1200 01:26:44,720 --> 01:26:53,720 You know, Apidites de Dendrobangia, like that one Pittosporopsis apparently it looks 1201 01:26:53,760 --> 01:26:59,520 like Pittosporum and some characteristic raffio stylus, et cetera. But you know this, 1202 01:27:00,079 --> 01:27:03,439 it's a really obscure family, mostly at the lower latitudes, and so 1203 01:27:03,560 --> 01:27:08,920 you've got Genti and Aalies, the Order of Gentian and the Order of Milkweed. 1204 01:27:09,960 --> 01:27:13,960 On one side of the order Gary a Lee's and gary a Lees only 1205 01:27:14,079 --> 01:27:16,479 can only has two families in it. And then on the other side of 1206 01:27:16,560 --> 01:27:19,880 gary A Lees you get medimittunius. Say, whatever the fuck it was, 1207 01:27:19,960 --> 01:27:26,199 I just said, m E T T E n U S I L E 1208 01:27:26,680 --> 01:27:29,479 S. I think I don't know. I'd have to go back and look 1209 01:27:29,520 --> 01:27:34,000 at it. But gary gary Aales only contains Yeah, those two, those 1210 01:27:34,079 --> 01:27:40,760 two families Ucomyac and gary Ac. Those are only two families in gary A 1211 01:27:40,920 --> 01:27:45,159 Lee. So this is a weird This is a really weird taxonomically at least 1212 01:27:45,319 --> 01:27:47,600 lineage. And you can tell it when you see a Garya. And I 1213 01:27:47,640 --> 01:27:51,520 always get stoked when I see one, because especially if they're outside of the 1214 01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:57,119 general range that I know them from, which is like West Texas to California, 1215 01:27:57,199 --> 01:28:00,199 so generally the arid western half of the country, only at higher elevations 1216 01:28:00,359 --> 01:28:04,399 or at sites that will get a little bit more moisture, though some of 1217 01:28:04,439 --> 01:28:09,399 them are very drought tolerant. They're known as colloquially as the silk tassels. 1218 01:28:09,479 --> 01:28:14,800 Like silk tassel bush is a very common plant and native plant horticulture in California 1219 01:28:15,199 --> 01:28:19,840 gets The inflorescence are these pendant hanging tassels, and the plants are dioecias, 1220 01:28:19,880 --> 01:28:24,920 so they're either male or female. Plant will only produce unisexual flowers, either 1221 01:28:24,960 --> 01:28:29,960 male flowers or female flowers. And the individual flowers are pretty unique too. 1222 01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:33,039 They generally have like four their four marists, so they got four petals or 1223 01:28:33,119 --> 01:28:35,399 peoples or whatever the fuck you want to call them. I've never even looked 1224 01:28:35,399 --> 01:28:40,199 at They're just one whirl. I can't remember offhand. I did actually look 1225 01:28:40,279 --> 01:28:44,279 because we saw a garious species that I was getting wonderful money shots of in 1226 01:28:44,680 --> 01:28:49,880 Baja when I was with Alan and Jordan four months ago. But anyway, 1227 01:28:49,960 --> 01:28:54,000 the one I saw in the Dominican Republic really blew my mind because it's so 1228 01:28:54,279 --> 01:28:57,560 disjunct from the distribution of the rest of the family, and it grows at 1229 01:28:57,640 --> 01:29:00,680 these higher elevations. God knows how to fuck it. God, they're probably 1230 01:29:00,239 --> 01:29:04,479 bird dispersal, maybe it was. Maybe the lineage is just extremely old and 1231 01:29:04,720 --> 01:29:10,199 back when the climate was different at lower elevations and there was more garia widespread. 1232 01:29:10,840 --> 01:29:13,279 But either way, it was cool to see this. This was Garia, 1233 01:29:13,359 --> 01:29:15,159 Ovada and it was there were only like three plants, maybe four or 1234 01:29:15,199 --> 01:29:18,840 five growing there, and they were very drought stressed. And same thing you 1235 01:29:18,880 --> 01:29:23,039 saw with the Kamaro staff lists just a borded flower. So anyway, the 1236 01:29:23,199 --> 01:29:29,079 order gary Alees, the order gary Alies, has two families in it yukoma 1237 01:29:29,159 --> 01:29:32,359 Ac and gary Ace. The genus Garya is the only genus in the order, 1238 01:29:32,439 --> 01:29:36,880 and it's native to North America. So far as I know. The 1239 01:29:38,279 --> 01:29:43,239 family yucomya Ac only is one species in it Ucomia oh modes that's used in 1240 01:29:43,399 --> 01:29:48,319 Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and that's native to Asia. Excuse me, 1241 01:29:48,439 --> 01:29:54,479 Ucomia ol moities, but I'm sure it's been planted elsewhere. That's kind 1242 01:29:54,520 --> 01:29:58,600 of a pretty tree, almost looks like a hackberry, a little bit in 1243 01:29:58,800 --> 01:30:02,640 leaf. And then in order gary or in family gary Ac. Excuse me? 1244 01:30:02,720 --> 01:30:04,119 And why am I telling you all this? Because I want you to 1245 01:30:04,359 --> 01:30:06,680 pay attention. This is cool, This is cool shit to know that how 1246 01:30:06,720 --> 01:30:11,800 the distributions of these things shift back and forth over time, and you know 1247 01:30:11,920 --> 01:30:16,159 how these lineages have dispersed from their ancestor and Garya is such a cool I 1248 01:30:16,199 --> 01:30:20,239 mean, if you live in the Western United States, especially the lower latitudes 1249 01:30:20,520 --> 01:30:25,640 of the United States, the Western United States, Texas, Texas, New 1250 01:30:25,680 --> 01:30:30,560 Mexico, Arizona, even Oregon, California, and Nevada, you should know 1251 01:30:30,880 --> 01:30:33,640 this genus g A r r Ya. And so in the family gary Ace, 1252 01:30:34,079 --> 01:30:39,399 the only other genus is A Cuba, which I think has ten species 1253 01:30:39,439 --> 01:30:43,279 in it, and I think again they're all Asian. So like Alcuba Japonica 1254 01:30:43,359 --> 01:30:48,560 gets planted a lot in East Coast horticulture. I think it's fucking invasive in 1255 01:30:48,640 --> 01:30:54,439 some areas. There's like three species that are used in horticulture, and you'll 1256 01:30:54,439 --> 01:30:59,640 see them on a lot of Eastern United States gardens. So family gary a 1257 01:30:59,760 --> 01:31:03,800 c two genera order gary Ales, two families one of the other family, 1258 01:31:03,880 --> 01:31:09,800 and gary alees only has one species in it. And but yeah, so 1259 01:31:09,880 --> 01:31:12,720 that was fucking grow. There was a Garria here, which is not surprising. 1260 01:31:12,800 --> 01:31:18,000 There tend to be higher elevation sky island plants. In deserts we get 1261 01:31:18,119 --> 01:31:25,239 we forget the species we get in Texas we get Garyolendheimerai righty eye, gold 1262 01:31:25,359 --> 01:31:28,560 Manni I too. And then I think that's it. Just those three. 1263 01:31:30,079 --> 01:31:34,319 Damn, that's wild. I didn't realize that. Yeah, damn yeah. 1264 01:31:34,399 --> 01:31:41,000 Gold Manni has kind of a strictly West Texas distribution and also kind of stuck 1265 01:31:41,079 --> 01:31:45,720 at higher latitudes because these are not exceptionally drought tolerant plants. They're mountain plants, 1266 01:31:45,760 --> 01:31:48,600 but you can always tell opposite leaves and their stems kind of break into 1267 01:31:48,680 --> 01:31:53,399 segments, and then of course the inflorescences if you see one flower and are 1268 01:31:53,720 --> 01:31:59,720 pendent. So anyway, continuing on, there was Echavaria everywhere, which again 1269 01:31:59,840 --> 01:32:02,640 is it's like a summer rain version of a Dudley. It's a really cool 1270 01:32:02,680 --> 01:32:06,640 succulent in crass a lece uk, which is you know, primarily you got 1271 01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:10,520 the old world crass lacey, the New World crast lace. They all they 1272 01:32:10,640 --> 01:32:15,520 both look very distinct in flower as well as in leaf. This is the 1273 01:32:15,600 --> 01:32:20,840 New world crass lacey. Echavaria grab the pedulum pack of Phytum, Dudley, 1274 01:32:20,920 --> 01:32:28,079 all those genera. And so this we saw Ecaveria calderoni, which is a 1275 01:32:28,560 --> 01:32:34,720 calderonier Calderoni is actually I used to pronounced it, but really cool, cute, 1276 01:32:34,760 --> 01:32:39,479 little fucking you know, succulent leaf. Rosette with bright orange and red 1277 01:32:40,000 --> 01:32:45,520 inflorescences on it. There was also uh, what was it Echaveria. I 1278 01:32:45,640 --> 01:32:46,960 have thought the look this one up. But there were quite a few species, 1279 01:32:47,000 --> 01:32:51,319 and there was Mammalaria he lenses there too, growing ensconced in moss and 1280 01:32:51,439 --> 01:32:56,000 leaf stuff on top of a boulder. It's a cool little plant, you 1281 01:32:56,039 --> 01:33:00,000 know, these tiny you know, really easy to miss, just grown in 1282 01:33:00,079 --> 01:33:02,319 a moss bed. And that would be the theme for the rest of the 1283 01:33:02,399 --> 01:33:06,680 day, was just seeing cacti being you know, nurtured in these nests of 1284 01:33:08,279 --> 01:33:12,840 Selaginella. I think it was sar torri i. Another Selaginella species, the 1285 01:33:12,920 --> 01:33:18,800 spike moss that drought completely drought tolerant desiccation tolerant spike moss, which isn't a 1286 01:33:18,880 --> 01:33:24,119 moss. Mosses don't have vascular systems, they don't have plumbing. Celaginella does. 1287 01:33:24,199 --> 01:33:28,680 It's a lycophyte. And uh, and there was oaks all around. 1288 01:33:28,720 --> 01:33:32,159 It was Corcus podocina, Corcus jonesy eye, which was a beautiful fucking oak 1289 01:33:32,199 --> 01:33:38,880 species. But they again everything looked super stressed, h right now because it's 1290 01:33:38,960 --> 01:33:42,720 so fucking dry, and we saw clouds. We were hoping it would rain, 1291 01:33:42,800 --> 01:33:45,680 but it didn't. So we go up under this mountain hike around go 1292 01:33:45,920 --> 01:33:49,760 through there was a Nolina with cesspatifera there. It kind of looks like Nolina 1293 01:33:49,840 --> 01:33:56,920 Texina and like a bunch grass, but it's one of these asp asparagoid monocots 1294 01:33:56,960 --> 01:34:00,199 with a cool little inflorescence. There's like it's like basically right now we're like 1295 01:34:00,319 --> 01:34:08,199 Pinus symbroidies and oak woodland Quircus quirkus jonesy eye Woodland jonesy eye seemed to be 1296 01:34:08,279 --> 01:34:12,279 growing more in the arroyos. More it needed to need. It seemed to 1297 01:34:12,359 --> 01:34:15,279 need more moisture. And so then we came across as Zephyranthes to a rain 1298 01:34:15,359 --> 01:34:20,560 lily Amarillid deasy, the amaryllid family, or now I guess it's amarillad Doughty. 1299 01:34:20,680 --> 01:34:25,640 It's another subfamily of a sparagacy. But this thing, of course could 1300 01:34:25,720 --> 01:34:30,640 be blooming during such a drought time because it's got that bulb in the ground. 1301 01:34:30,880 --> 01:34:34,520 And you know, most of Amarilladacey Amarilla doughty are geophytes. So it 1302 01:34:34,640 --> 01:34:38,680 was going off, but there was just this thick stuff everywhere. It was 1303 01:34:38,760 --> 01:34:42,479 so important. It's acting like a sponge helping to hold moisture in I mean 1304 01:34:42,520 --> 01:34:45,680 it was dry as a fucking bone. Now, this thing had the consistency 1305 01:34:45,720 --> 01:34:48,319 of a dry sponge, but you could see how this helps retain moisture in 1306 01:34:48,399 --> 01:34:53,720 a very rocky environment where it's likely that water will just run off, and 1307 01:34:53,840 --> 01:34:58,119 indeed that's what it was doing. Throughout all of this habitat. There was 1308 01:34:58,199 --> 01:35:02,119 hectia, it seemed to be glomar. There a number of really cool uh 1309 01:35:02,720 --> 01:35:05,960 yuccas and agaves. There was a gave. Actually I don't think there was 1310 01:35:06,039 --> 01:35:15,119 yukka. There was a gave philifra forming these little colonies which supposedly someone saw 1311 01:35:15,239 --> 01:35:17,920 on my i at and comment that it was probably just the gave Salmiana. 1312 01:35:18,039 --> 01:35:21,600 But again one of these weird ecotypes doesn't get that big, because remember Salmiana 1313 01:35:21,640 --> 01:35:27,760 is this big fucking species. These were small basketball sized plants. At most. 1314 01:35:27,840 --> 01:35:31,680 It's a gave and just growing on this little rocky arroyo in this kind 1315 01:35:31,720 --> 01:35:38,600 of short pygmy forest of oaks and pines. There was also a Punthia robusta 1316 01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:42,960 that big hubcap size. The prickly paired of Clado's are like the size of 1317 01:35:43,000 --> 01:35:45,680 a fucking hubcap. Literally, I remember I planted some of those in the 1318 01:35:45,760 --> 01:35:49,520 illegal garden back in Oakland when I had that going before it got destroyed by 1319 01:35:49,560 --> 01:35:55,479 that. That the angry realtor, lady ha ha. And it's that was 1320 01:35:55,680 --> 01:35:58,479 again great to see it. And it's in its native habitat, big yellow 1321 01:35:58,520 --> 01:36:01,359 flowers on it when it goes off, thick blue waxy farina on it as 1322 01:36:01,439 --> 01:36:09,399 well. Bovardia turnifolia was there, hummingbird pollinated, red tubular flowered member of 1323 01:36:09,439 --> 01:36:13,680 the coffee family ruby ac and not surprising to see in a montane sky island 1324 01:36:13,760 --> 01:36:16,479 in western North America or in an arid climate. Excuse me, you know 1325 01:36:17,000 --> 01:36:19,840 these sky islands in a sea of desert. You can see the same thing 1326 01:36:19,920 --> 01:36:26,760 in southern Arizona. Bovardia turnifoia Ecavera agavoides too. What a fucking cool plant, 1327 01:36:26,800 --> 01:36:30,239 big ass succulent Ecavaria agavoides, because it looks like in a gave. 1328 01:36:30,479 --> 01:36:34,279 It's got these leaf rosettes of succulent leaves look like in a gave. But 1329 01:36:34,359 --> 01:36:40,560 again they're just growing in these these rock overhangs, just draped in Silaganella and 1330 01:36:40,640 --> 01:36:45,439 probably some other cool mosses, and just such fucking cool habitat God, you 1331 01:36:45,520 --> 01:36:48,640 know, the whole thing, this whole mat that hangs over these things like 1332 01:36:48,720 --> 01:36:54,279 a wreath, just acting like a sponge to help hold water when it does 1333 01:36:54,399 --> 01:36:59,159 get some rain. But again everything was super crispy. Now back growing back 1334 01:36:59,239 --> 01:37:01,840 down with the arc, the staphelos and the camaro staff list those are buttoid 1335 01:37:02,399 --> 01:37:06,800 Eric Casey, there was Mammalaria densist spina, which was again growing on like 1336 01:37:06,880 --> 01:37:12,279 the floor of this oak forest beneath this light canopy because most of the trees 1337 01:37:12,319 --> 01:37:16,640 were losing their leaves because they were so drought stressed. And Mammalaria densitt spina 1338 01:37:16,680 --> 01:37:20,960 looks like a little golden knob is the best. It looks like a golden 1339 01:37:21,039 --> 01:37:26,239 doorknob, like a big don't doorknob, you know, golden spined doorknob. 1340 01:37:28,840 --> 01:37:33,560 And then there was Stevia solicifolia everywhere to another fucking Stevia species with I only 1341 01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:36,840 found one or two flowering. You can tell when it's after a good rain. 1342 01:37:36,920 --> 01:37:41,720 That thing is probably everywhere, a really common plant, but it was 1343 01:37:41,840 --> 01:37:45,319 so dry, only found a few flowering. Upatory Joe pieweed drive of course 1344 01:37:45,399 --> 01:37:48,720 got those long ass styles in it. And then we got to this little 1345 01:37:48,800 --> 01:37:54,640 rock outcropping and we went up there and that was the target plant that we 1346 01:37:54,760 --> 01:38:00,960 had been looking to photograph and lurk on Mammalaria perez de la Rosa Andersoniana, 1347 01:38:00,039 --> 01:38:03,880 which is this cute little man. And the perplexing thing about this Mammalaria species 1348 01:38:03,960 --> 01:38:06,840 to me was that, you know, many Mammalaria species, well, all 1349 01:38:06,880 --> 01:38:11,359 mammalaria flower in a concentric ring around an apex. They don't flower out of 1350 01:38:11,399 --> 01:38:15,079 the directly out of the apex, the center of the plant of the cactus 1351 01:38:15,279 --> 01:38:19,399 of the which is just a green photosynthetic stem, a little battery right like 1352 01:38:19,520 --> 01:38:24,159 peyoti does peyoti and astrophytem they flower out of the center of the plant. 1353 01:38:24,319 --> 01:38:29,239 Mammalaria's flower in a ring around the center. And that's a diagnostic feature for 1354 01:38:29,319 --> 01:38:32,640 tona apart from genera like Coraphanta and Escobaria, which I will certainly not call 1355 01:38:32,840 --> 01:38:41,000 pellacifra because I think that's ridiculous. So no offense to the guy who wrote 1356 01:38:41,039 --> 01:38:45,039 the paper or anybody who follows that taxonomy. You're just you're just obscuring an 1357 01:38:45,039 --> 01:38:49,560 evolutionary story. That's not my style. So but most of those most Mammalaria 1358 01:38:49,720 --> 01:38:54,880 or many of them will produce these red chili pepper like fruits that are conspicuous 1359 01:38:54,880 --> 01:38:57,760 to birds, and that's how they get that's how they get dispersed with this 1360 01:38:58,279 --> 01:39:01,720 species. It like it flowers in a concentric ring, these little looks like 1361 01:39:01,800 --> 01:39:04,600 yellow or white flowers. The flowers were all closed up. We didn't find 1362 01:39:04,640 --> 01:39:08,640 any actively flowering. It was also kind of late, it was like five 1363 01:39:08,720 --> 01:39:13,600 PM when we got there. But once the flowers are done and then the 1364 01:39:13,640 --> 01:39:18,640 fruit's maturing, the ovary beneath that fruit doesn't pop out. It doesn't turn 1365 01:39:18,720 --> 01:39:21,680 red, and it stays green and it doesn't pop out. It stays ensconced 1366 01:39:23,399 --> 01:39:30,279 beneath these feather like plumose radial spines. You know, this species has central 1367 01:39:30,479 --> 01:39:34,840 black central central spines, black central spines with a little the kind of bend 1368 01:39:34,880 --> 01:39:39,159 a little bit. They don't have like a recurved fish hook. And then 1369 01:39:39,159 --> 01:39:43,840 the radial spines are like these plumos, very obviously acting as a shade screen 1370 01:39:43,880 --> 01:39:48,359 and possibly as camouflage too. That makes it just blend in with the white 1371 01:39:48,560 --> 01:39:56,079 shriveled dry celaginella because the spike moss is all white and it's kind of like 1372 01:39:56,159 --> 01:39:59,640 white and gray and maybe a little bit of yellow when it's in it's desiccated 1373 01:39:59,680 --> 01:40:02,920 state, when it's it's in its dry states. So and these things were 1374 01:40:03,000 --> 01:40:08,039 just abundant. They were every plant was growing with this spike moss. There 1375 01:40:08,119 --> 01:40:13,279 was also a kind of fossulo cactus, which I think, you know, 1376 01:40:13,720 --> 01:40:19,760 the taxonomy maybe used to be stenocactus, but now it's kind of fasulo cactus. 1377 01:40:19,800 --> 01:40:24,119 I don't know which taxonomy is older or which which is the correct one 1378 01:40:24,359 --> 01:40:27,840 now, And maybe I naturalists had not updated it, but I naturalists is 1379 01:40:27,840 --> 01:40:31,000 still call it a kind of fasulo cactus. Oh Cho Teranus, Oh Joe 1380 01:40:31,199 --> 01:40:35,600 Terranus, Ocho terin nos, however you want to, however you want to 1381 01:40:35,680 --> 01:40:42,479 call that. And that species too was growing in at least in this oak 1382 01:40:42,520 --> 01:40:45,680 woodland on the floor of this rocky flora, this oak and pine dwarf woodland 1383 01:40:46,359 --> 01:40:53,039 was growing in a wreath of this Selaginella selaginellus ar Torrie got it. Just 1384 01:40:53,119 --> 01:40:57,960 I fucking love seeing that these these floristic associations, these ecological associations, you 1385 01:40:58,039 --> 01:41:01,159 know, where they're both you could call mutualism. They're both helping each other 1386 01:41:01,760 --> 01:41:08,119 get by. It's probably not just one sided in a very stressful environment where 1387 01:41:08,119 --> 01:41:11,760 there's not a lot of moisture and it goes long periods of time without any 1388 01:41:11,840 --> 01:41:14,960 rain where it dries out. So it was the theme for the day was 1389 01:41:15,079 --> 01:41:21,159 cacti ensconced in little wreaths of spike moss. But this Mammalaria species was so 1390 01:41:21,279 --> 01:41:24,439 fucking cool. It was so great to see. I mean, I don't 1391 01:41:24,439 --> 01:41:27,760 normally get amped about mammalaria because there's so many of them, and a lot 1392 01:41:27,760 --> 01:41:29,520 of them are just like, ah, yeah, there you go. It's 1393 01:41:29,520 --> 01:41:32,439 a mammalaria. They're pretty I like them. They provide ecosystem services, fruit 1394 01:41:32,520 --> 01:41:38,199 for birds, often not in this case, but often flowers for pollinators. 1395 01:41:38,319 --> 01:41:42,039 But I was just kind of like, eh, but this species is unique. 1396 01:41:42,039 --> 01:41:44,840 It looks like a little hill raiser, like a little white plumos, 1397 01:41:45,279 --> 01:41:48,840 you know, feather cushion with these black spines popping out of it, and 1398 01:41:48,920 --> 01:41:51,439 they don't get very big like a golf ball. Is an old plant, 1399 01:41:51,479 --> 01:41:56,760 and there were little guys everywhere, but there was also obvious signs of poaching. 1400 01:41:56,800 --> 01:41:58,920 And that's what Gabriel and a mirror told me too, is when they 1401 01:41:58,960 --> 01:42:00,359 first came to that spot, there were so many more of them, and 1402 01:42:00,439 --> 01:42:04,119 then the poachers hit it, which is it could be locals who are getting 1403 01:42:04,199 --> 01:42:09,560 paid, or it could be you know, they sell these things at cactus 1404 01:42:09,640 --> 01:42:12,760 markets, or it could be a more targeted thing, like they're selling them 1405 01:42:12,800 --> 01:42:16,039 to some they're shipping them to someone overseas in the Czech Republic a lot of 1406 01:42:16,119 --> 01:42:19,920 check cactus poachers and no shit, or someone in Japan, you know, 1407 01:42:20,039 --> 01:42:27,239 a collector, the collector really great collection, got the fucking collected thing. 1408 01:42:27,279 --> 01:42:30,520 It's just so fucking nerdy man, like just put that ship in a botanic 1409 01:42:30,640 --> 01:42:34,439 garden, you know, Conservatix City, put it in a botanic garden, 1410 01:42:34,520 --> 01:42:39,640 grow the shit out of it. Whatever. But like the need to have 1411 01:42:39,960 --> 01:42:44,720 these things, like there's there was a new species of ubil mania that just 1412 01:42:44,800 --> 01:42:49,720 got described that grows in these sand habitats in Brazil. It just got described, 1413 01:42:49,800 --> 01:42:54,119 and it's already it's like on these someone was telling me who monitors these 1414 01:42:54,399 --> 01:42:59,399 these poaching uh, these these poaching websites and poached you know, all the 1415 01:42:59,520 --> 01:43:02,720 collector forums and whatever. There's already like these fucking nerds just but I gotta 1416 01:43:02,760 --> 01:43:04,399 go, I gotta go have it. I gotta go have this for a 1417 01:43:04,439 --> 01:43:06,560 collection. I need to have this for by collection. It's like they're with 1418 01:43:06,640 --> 01:43:10,680 anything. It's just fucking lame, you know, Like, what do you 1419 01:43:10,800 --> 01:43:13,159 what is they gonna do? It's like you're not even learning anything from a 1420 01:43:13,279 --> 01:43:15,479 united studyingness. You just want to own it. I rant about this all 1421 01:43:15,520 --> 01:43:17,880 the time. I know, you know, I know you're probably fucking tired 1422 01:43:17,920 --> 01:43:21,079 of it, but it's just so fucking whack. I only want to grow 1423 01:43:21,159 --> 01:43:26,520 shit that I can study. I want to grow a plant that mesmerizes me, 1424 01:43:26,640 --> 01:43:29,359 so I can see it throughout its life stages, see how it flowers, 1425 01:43:29,399 --> 01:43:31,640 how it disperses fruit, how it grows, what it responds to, 1426 01:43:33,119 --> 01:43:40,239 how versatile it is in you know, horticulture, how you know basically, 1427 01:43:40,880 --> 01:43:43,399 and a lot of these things are super good. They're gonna be they're gonna 1428 01:43:43,399 --> 01:43:45,840 be hard to grow, Like they're gonna poach these things and they're gonna kill 1429 01:43:45,880 --> 01:43:49,279 them. Like, how do you mimic eight thousand feet elevation at twenty degrees 1430 01:43:49,399 --> 01:43:55,960 latitude in a fucking greenhouse in Japan or in Czech Republic, or in fucking 1431 01:43:56,800 --> 01:44:00,600 wherever, Arizona, wherever these things end up? You know, And why 1432 01:44:00,720 --> 01:44:02,520 don't you just collect seed. If you're gonna do it, you know it, 1433 01:44:02,720 --> 01:44:04,800 Just collect seed, Like why the fuck? Now, that's so much 1434 01:44:04,840 --> 01:44:09,680 more fun to learn how to grow you want to just you know, man, 1435 01:44:10,560 --> 01:44:14,560 just these these mass poachings that go on, like market poaching, you 1436 01:44:14,640 --> 01:44:18,039 know, I don't know, you know, I'm just talking about like someone 1437 01:44:18,199 --> 01:44:21,680 oh it takes one or two. I'm talking about like just looting the hillside, 1438 01:44:23,920 --> 01:44:27,479 fucking nerds and some of the boxes that I've seen get intercepted by customers, 1439 01:44:27,479 --> 01:44:30,399 which then get shipped to sell sewel Ross University. I mean, these 1440 01:44:30,479 --> 01:44:34,760 fucking assholes take everything. They take so many plants, like I'll never forget 1441 01:44:34,760 --> 01:44:40,359 the box full of pellacifa or area of Carpus bravo annas that I saw just 1442 01:44:40,720 --> 01:44:45,960 ENTI huge plants, old growth plants that represent hundreds of years living in an 1443 01:44:45,960 --> 01:44:49,199 ecosystem, growing on a certain landscape. And now they're gone, and they're 1444 01:44:49,279 --> 01:44:53,399 just gonna get fucked. They're gonna slowly fucking die. And that's what happens 1445 01:44:53,439 --> 01:44:56,159 to most of them, you know. And that's part of the reason I'm 1446 01:44:56,199 --> 01:44:59,079 not a collector. I mean, there's many reasons I'm not. I think 1447 01:44:59,079 --> 01:45:01,039 it's fucking nerdy as hell, no offense. But also I don't want to 1448 01:45:01,079 --> 01:45:05,119 be responsible for killing shit. I don't want to have to worry about it. 1449 01:45:05,319 --> 01:45:08,800 I don't want to have to, you know. I want things that 1450 01:45:08,880 --> 01:45:11,119 I can study, things that are native, things I can put in the 1451 01:45:11,159 --> 01:45:14,720 ground, things I can you know, grow more of and then give to 1452 01:45:14,800 --> 01:45:16,960 people to put in native plant gardens. You know. I want to let 1453 01:45:17,039 --> 01:45:20,920 the plants use me to make more of them. And some of these plants 1454 01:45:21,000 --> 01:45:23,880 don't want you to do that. They want to be left the fuck alone. 1455 01:45:23,920 --> 01:45:28,439 They want to stay in their little fucking spike moss wreath nestled on a 1456 01:45:28,520 --> 01:45:32,640 fucking sketchy cliff face somewhere in Guanajuato. That's what they want. Somebody's all 1457 01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:34,960 right, So just fucking leave them be, or you know, or take 1458 01:45:35,000 --> 01:45:38,439 a couple seeds if you're gonna do any of that. Whatever. Man, 1459 01:45:39,199 --> 01:45:43,920 you know, it's just anyway, so, you know, but the whole 1460 01:45:43,960 --> 01:45:45,439 habitat, I mean, you're walking through this stuff and it's you get a 1461 01:45:45,520 --> 01:45:49,399 watch where you're stepping because they're everywhere, and they're you know, I went 1462 01:45:49,479 --> 01:45:54,920 up to go photograph. It's a kind of serious asipher that was flowering, 1463 01:45:55,319 --> 01:45:58,399 and you know, big orange flowering, a big green stigma, like all 1464 01:45:58,439 --> 01:46:02,560 the kind of serious and you couldn't even see the plant because it was nestled 1465 01:46:02,600 --> 01:46:05,760 in this spike moss on this fucking cliff face. And I'm just like going 1466 01:46:05,840 --> 01:46:09,000 up. I'm like, oh God, Jesus Christ, I'm like nervous, 1467 01:46:09,000 --> 01:46:13,000 I'm gonna fucking step on one of these mammalaria. I'm looking where, you 1468 01:46:13,039 --> 01:46:15,399 know, only just turn a step on bare rock. And there was Tilansia 1469 01:46:15,520 --> 01:46:20,279 er ubessens up there too, beautiful quote unquote airplant just growing on the on 1470 01:46:20,359 --> 01:46:27,199 the this overhang of of rhyolite, and one of the you know, one 1471 01:46:27,239 --> 01:46:30,359 of the talansis was actually stuck up against the cliff. I made a shitty 1472 01:46:30,399 --> 01:46:33,479 Instagram post about this, and I can't do Instagram much anymore. That this 1473 01:46:33,680 --> 01:46:38,000 short attention span shit, it's just not my style. I want to make 1474 01:46:38,039 --> 01:46:40,840 long form videos, put them on YouTube. That's a way to preserve the 1475 01:46:40,880 --> 01:46:43,760 habitat, show others the habitat. You know, I don't want to make 1476 01:46:44,680 --> 01:46:48,680 you know. And then it's it's it's up there for perpetuity, until you 1477 01:46:48,760 --> 01:46:51,800 know, we all get incinerated in a nuclear blast or a comet strikes or 1478 01:46:51,840 --> 01:46:57,600 YouTube fuck whatever until I get banned from YouTube whatever. You know, you 1479 01:46:57,680 --> 01:47:00,720 make this short form content, you make a you make a goofy fucking post 1480 01:47:00,800 --> 01:47:04,600 that doesn't educate anybody about anything in most cases, and then it gets forgotten 1481 01:47:04,640 --> 01:47:08,880 about three posts later. You know, by a generation. It's gott an 1482 01:47:08,880 --> 01:47:12,319 a tension span of all thirty seconds, you know, and then the fucking 1483 01:47:12,399 --> 01:47:16,680 social media companies are just using you to fucking help them sell advertising and stupid 1484 01:47:16,680 --> 01:47:18,960 shit that nobody needs to buy in the first place. Anyway, there's my 1485 01:47:19,079 --> 01:47:25,880 rant. But but I made a post about this telansia holding up. You 1486 01:47:25,960 --> 01:47:30,319 know, this telansia stuck to a fucking rock wall, because that's what they 1487 01:47:30,439 --> 01:47:35,039 do. The seeds get have the airplant seeds have these plumos appendages to them 1488 01:47:35,039 --> 01:47:40,319 that act as win dispersal mechanisms and also help them stick to services. Like 1489 01:47:40,399 --> 01:47:46,039 if you took a dandelion seed and wet it and stuck it to a rock 1490 01:47:46,119 --> 01:47:48,800 wall, same thing. It's all those hairs helped them stick to the rock 1491 01:47:48,880 --> 01:47:54,760 wall that germinates there. The roots that emerge act as facultative anchors. They're 1492 01:47:54,800 --> 01:48:00,720 drinking through their leaves with all those peltate tricoms like all Telansia do. Well, 1493 01:48:00,159 --> 01:48:04,680 maybe not all of them, but uh most And then because I think 1494 01:48:04,800 --> 01:48:08,960 some are tanks, like they just hold water in the leafro sets anyway. 1495 01:48:10,039 --> 01:48:13,800 Uh, and so it's stuck to this rock wall, and then a fucking 1496 01:48:13,840 --> 01:48:16,239 little cactus seed falls down once that plant is big enough, once the tulansi 1497 01:48:16,359 --> 01:48:20,720 is big enough, and then and then that seed germinates. Then you get 1498 01:48:20,920 --> 01:48:25,279 the cactus is now stuck to the rock wall too, maybe exploiting a crack, 1499 01:48:26,039 --> 01:48:29,439 and boom you get rock wall cacti. And it's fucking awesome. It's 1500 01:48:29,479 --> 01:48:32,880 so cool to see, and you just pray no fucking creep comes by, 1501 01:48:33,439 --> 01:48:36,800 creepy little nerd or some market poatry who doesn't give a shit about anything, 1502 01:48:36,880 --> 01:48:41,439 and he's gonna come by and pluck it off. So uh. In Tulansi 1503 01:48:41,560 --> 01:48:45,319 erubessence is a beautiful influorescence to pink. Inflorescence is obviously hummer pollinated, like 1504 01:48:45,439 --> 01:48:48,880 so many of them are. So I'm walking around this habitat and there's jet 1505 01:48:48,880 --> 01:48:53,159 trophied dio week everywhere too, which is another plant we get in South Texas, 1506 01:48:53,199 --> 01:48:57,079 but here, you know it grows at eighty feet elevation in Star County, 1507 01:48:57,159 --> 01:49:00,880 South Texas, and then it grows at eight thousand, two hundred feet 1508 01:49:00,279 --> 01:49:05,319 elevation in Guanajuato. I mean, it's all throughout Mexico. But these this 1509 01:49:05,479 --> 01:49:11,000 ecotype of Jotrophadaweko was huge, I mean really robust. You could tell there's 1510 01:49:11,039 --> 01:49:15,319 this giant bulb under there that sends up these leathery brown stems that get three 1511 01:49:15,399 --> 01:49:19,199 or four feet tall. It was a much larger, more robust ecotype. 1512 01:49:20,199 --> 01:49:25,000 So so yeah, man, I mean we just you know, it's one 1513 01:49:25,000 --> 01:49:27,479 of those habitats you want to just lurk and you want to take it all 1514 01:49:27,520 --> 01:49:29,840 in. You want to make sure you don't miss anything. It was cool 1515 01:49:29,880 --> 01:49:34,840 across this big canyon. On the opposite canyon wall, we saw these red 1516 01:49:34,960 --> 01:49:39,359 leaves everywhere, like big red. We couldn't tell what it was. Gabrielle 1517 01:49:39,359 --> 01:49:41,680 thought it wasn't a kind of serious at first. We get up close to 1518 01:49:41,800 --> 01:49:45,880 it on the way back and it ends up being Hucra mexicana and sacks of 1519 01:49:45,960 --> 01:49:51,119 frag gacy, which was fucking cool to see. Was super dry. The 1520 01:49:51,199 --> 01:49:56,960 leaves are normally green, but you know the dead leaves. In this case, 1521 01:49:57,039 --> 01:50:00,920 it was so drought stressed that dead leaves had turned red, obviously flushing 1522 01:50:00,000 --> 01:50:05,960 anthocyanins all the chlorophyll that just you know, died back in them are or 1523 01:50:06,000 --> 01:50:10,399 maybe I guess the anthocyans had just flushed. Don't quote me in it. 1524 01:50:10,600 --> 01:50:13,479 You may have just completely given you bad dope. But either way, bright 1525 01:50:13,560 --> 01:50:16,279 red leaves, the newer growth was still green, and the old leaves were 1526 01:50:16,600 --> 01:50:20,039 bright red and orange, beautiful hues of bright red and orange. But I 1527 01:50:20,199 --> 01:50:25,199 just prayed at area gets some fucking rain, man, because it was depressing 1528 01:50:25,560 --> 01:50:28,920 to see, and it is probably you know, five times more mesmerizing and 1529 01:50:29,000 --> 01:50:31,359 amazing when you see it in the rainy see after it's gotten a good rain. 1530 01:50:31,399 --> 01:50:36,159 It was just a fucking lit up. There were these really cool galls 1531 01:50:36,239 --> 01:50:44,000 that I saw, and the pinus symbroides too. They looked like these these 1532 01:50:45,399 --> 01:50:47,319 like you know, like the model atomic structure like they'd show you in like 1533 01:50:47,399 --> 01:50:50,039 high school chemistry. They kind of looked like that. They were. They 1534 01:50:50,239 --> 01:50:55,399 had these green tips. They were like conical shape, looked like little onions 1535 01:50:55,479 --> 01:50:59,640 all glued together at the base of the onion, like an onion that's got 1536 01:50:59,640 --> 01:51:02,439 already leafing out green, and so I don't know what the fuck it was. 1537 01:51:02,520 --> 01:51:08,560 It was some kind of wasp or beetle that obviously lays larvae in these 1538 01:51:08,920 --> 01:51:12,800 in the needles of Pinus sembroides, that pinion pine, and then it causes 1539 01:51:12,880 --> 01:51:17,119 these cool growth. But they were beautiful growths, beautiful gulls. Dasilarian perrianum 1540 01:51:17,199 --> 01:51:24,159 was another cool one, another so tall species that I had never seen before. 1541 01:51:24,239 --> 01:51:28,279 It's got the frayed tips, kind of like a glaucous blue color to 1542 01:51:28,399 --> 01:51:32,000 it. It's got little hooked teeth. Wasn't like Desilarian logisimum, which was 1543 01:51:32,039 --> 01:51:35,359 that colescent one I talked about last podcast that the era of Karpus coach of 1544 01:51:35,399 --> 01:51:40,720 Bianas spot. This is a just a straight terrestrial one. But it gets 1545 01:51:40,800 --> 01:51:44,439 these frayed leaf ends, and I don't know why it does it. I 1546 01:51:44,439 --> 01:51:46,000 don't know why the leaf ends fray like that, but it surely makes them 1547 01:51:46,079 --> 01:51:50,479 fucking look cool. They're like liciniate. So anyway, Yeah, so then 1548 01:51:50,520 --> 01:51:54,119 we just hiked back down as the sunset on our asses, and we were 1549 01:51:54,119 --> 01:51:57,960 all just kind of high from this habitat. Man, just just it was 1550 01:51:58,079 --> 01:52:00,319 so wonderful to be there, and you know, we were cracking jokes the 1551 01:52:00,359 --> 01:52:03,239 whole time and fucking you know, doing everything but lighting our farts on fire. 1552 01:52:03,319 --> 01:52:08,399 Right, It was just a fun just I learned so much. I 1553 01:52:08,439 --> 01:52:11,479 mean, you learn so much by going to habitat if you're paying attention and 1554 01:52:11,560 --> 01:52:15,319 asking the right questions and taking notes on everything and taking a shit ton of 1555 01:52:15,359 --> 01:52:16,880 photos, you know, And that's my special time out there. I go 1556 01:52:17,039 --> 01:52:20,840 there so that I don't fucking lose I don't lose my cool when I'm in 1557 01:52:21,000 --> 01:52:26,800 places like this, when I'm back in society around my fellow you know, 1558 01:52:27,119 --> 01:52:31,399 social primates, my bipedal social primates, who are you know, in denial 1559 01:52:31,760 --> 01:52:36,479 that they're actually animals and that they're part of this living biosphere. You know, 1560 01:52:36,760 --> 01:52:40,760 the animal that thinks it's not an animal that thinks it's too good to 1561 01:52:40,840 --> 01:52:44,079 be, an animal that thinks that it's for some reason, it's neurology is 1562 01:52:44,199 --> 01:52:49,760 not dictated by obsolete impulses and neurochemistry that are a result of natural selection over 1563 01:52:49,800 --> 01:52:54,119 the last however many million years. And you know, while it does have 1564 01:52:54,239 --> 01:52:59,880 the power to transcend those impulses and those maladaptive behaviors, and some of that 1565 01:53:00,159 --> 01:53:04,840 now obsolete primate neurochemistry. It doesn't take the opportunity, it doesn't choose it, 1566 01:53:04,920 --> 01:53:08,000 you know. And that's what culture. That's where culture comes in, 1567 01:53:08,159 --> 01:53:11,439 right, because we're fucking animals, but we have culture. We can transcend 1568 01:53:11,520 --> 01:53:14,680 it. We can be better, you know than just the barbaric, fucking 1569 01:53:14,960 --> 01:53:19,039 moron clubbing each other over dumb shit and invisible men in the sky and committing 1570 01:53:19,079 --> 01:53:24,680 countless atrocities. You know, I guess that mostly applies to the males, 1571 01:53:25,319 --> 01:53:28,640 just like it does with chimps. The males. I mean, everybody could 1572 01:53:28,680 --> 01:53:30,840 be a problem, but I you know, out of the bad shit comes 1573 01:53:30,880 --> 01:53:34,720 from the fucking males. It's just this. You look at other primates, 1574 01:53:34,760 --> 01:53:39,399 it starts to make sense. The monkey that thinks it's not a monkey anyway. 1575 01:53:40,239 --> 01:53:50,279 That sums up our our Mexico, our Correcto and Guanajuato roundup are synopsis 1576 01:53:50,359 --> 01:53:54,439 of all these cool habitats and plant communities. So the more orl less story 1577 01:53:54,560 --> 01:53:58,319 is, get yourself some good gear, pay attention to everything, take pictures 1578 01:53:58,359 --> 01:54:02,960 of everything and take notes, pay attention to elevation, latitude, all that 1579 01:54:03,079 --> 01:54:08,399 shit, and evolutionary lineage. That what's one of the best things about eye 1580 01:54:08,520 --> 01:54:12,960 naturalist is you can go to the taxonomy section and see what other shit the 1581 01:54:13,079 --> 01:54:15,439 plant you are looking at or that you're interested in or that you're fiending over 1582 01:54:15,680 --> 01:54:18,600 is related to. And that is so fucking important. I can't stress it 1583 01:54:18,760 --> 01:54:23,279 enough. What family, what order you because if you're asking those questions and 1584 01:54:23,319 --> 01:54:28,800 paying attention and remembering, you start to notice those shared traits that are you 1585 01:54:28,880 --> 01:54:31,520 know, you start to see the same things popping up in the same groups 1586 01:54:31,600 --> 01:54:35,960 of plants. So everything's important, you know, every fucking facet of these 1587 01:54:36,000 --> 01:54:41,279 places are important. They're all disappearing so goddamn quick before our eyes as we 1588 01:54:41,439 --> 01:54:45,479 take more for ourselves and leave so little for everything else. So uh, 1589 01:54:45,239 --> 01:54:50,039 anyway, God, I just get the fucking I haven't heard the eco fascist 1590 01:54:50,119 --> 01:54:54,560 thing lately, you know. I think it's well intentioned, but it's just 1591 01:54:54,680 --> 01:54:59,560 it's the perpetually online progressives just keep parroting the eco Actually, don't talk about 1592 01:54:59,600 --> 01:55:02,279 that, because if you mentioned that the biosphere is dying, it sounds a 1593 01:55:02,359 --> 01:55:06,439 lot like eco fascism and eugenics. God, shut the fuck off, Jesus 1594 01:55:06,520 --> 01:55:10,880 Christ. I can tell you're not actually individually thinking about this. You're just 1595 01:55:10,960 --> 01:55:15,560 parroting shit that you someone gave you a fucking a talking point and you're just 1596 01:55:15,039 --> 01:55:18,840 you're just repeating it because you think that's what it's good and you think that's 1597 01:55:18,880 --> 01:55:23,760 what's going to change the world. So oh, it's just fucking depressing. 1598 01:55:23,800 --> 01:55:28,560 But anyway, we talk about all that saw some beautiful shit, and there's 1599 01:55:28,560 --> 01:55:31,279 a lot more beautiful shit out there to see and you can go, uh 1600 01:55:31,439 --> 01:55:34,079 see a lot of it and learn about it, so even if it's just 1601 01:55:34,159 --> 01:55:39,520 in a fucking back alley in a dirty American city. So anyway, that's 1602 01:55:39,560 --> 01:55:42,239 all I got. Have a good rest of you to day. Go fuck yourself by