Speaker 1: Oh you could keep playing a smooth shit. It's down
the low anyway. Welcome to another episode a crime page,
a botany doesn't. I'm coming to you from San Luis Poto.
See where the fuck he wasn't even a time we
stayed in last night. Wonderful little pound. Oh it's cordy
about the are wonderful? Oh this is all that so
many South Texas plants here. We're only at twenty nine
hundred feet at three thousand feet so times three and
then move a decimal point over that's what like nine
hundred meters so anyway, Oh, beautiful Steino, Sirius Wes the
Korum just massive, massive fucking plants to a tree columnar
cact ie too, I don't know, five meters fifteen feet tall. Anyway,
it's been a wonderful time. We only been here two days,
and with my buddy Gabrielle, and we're looking at hillsides
that don't have any billboards or shopping plazas on them,
or cul de sacs or fucking McMansions or anything, you know.
I was just I was just pondering why, or realizing,
I guess why so much of Mexico has not been
trashed like the US. God, there are so many fucking
wonderful plants on these limestone cliffs. Jesus Christ, they these
bad right now, you know, And then I realize, of course,
you know, we got the central plaza like every little,
every little rural town you go to in Mexico, even
I mean big towns too, have a central plaza, like
a little socolo area, and you know where people just
loiter and congregate and hang out, and they got trees
planted and shit like a public park, and then everything
around that is generally laid out in a grid that's walkable,
you know. And that's like a huge difference to what
exists in so much of the southern United States. Some
of the you know, northern like Midwest towns, Northeast towns
have that kind of general vibe. But most of what
America's done in the last fifty years is of course suburbs.
And it's, you know, part of the reason we're all
isolated from each other and hateful, anxious, depressed, and generally
in poor shape, you know, because human beings evolved to walk,
and we we haven't we haven't been doing too much
of that lately, so it was Fuck, it's just you know,
everything about it. There's like there's so much open land left.
That's the thing too, you know, not everywhere people don't
drive every day. It'll spend three hours a day in
the car. That's crazy. It's a crazy idea, but that's
what is the case in much of this in the
United States. I'm just gonna keep hammering this home every
episode because it really does. You know, you start to
realize that you're unhappy living this way, and then maybe
you start to look for something else, and maybe eventually,
you know, it starts to be and I become an
idea that spreads among people, and you know, the people
that just don't like hearing me say negative things and
go fuck themselves. So I don't know why you're listening
to this. Well, look at these cacked I holy shit,
shit god, Oh it's pack a serious marginatum Like they
get photos of that in habitat at some point. So anyway,
we've been doing some really nice things. It's been barely
four to eight hours. We started off on gypsum habitats,
looking at gypsum endemic plants in San Luis Poto c.
Of course, there there's a band of gypsum that basically
runs from northern New Mexico through West Texas, UH through
an Awavo Leone, through San Luis poto Cea, through parts
of Hidalgo UH into Kolima and then south into Wahaka.
And wherever you see the gypsum, of course you see
plants that have evolved to only grow on gypsum. Ooh,
isolato serious, I think Mrpillo cactus, giant mapillo cactus the
size of a shack. Look at these fucking cactus for us,
God damn it, you know we might have to fuck.
We can't pull over, I guess God dam or whatever.
We're trying to you know, keep time, but uh keep
his schedule, but I don't. I try to avoid at
tenerary as best I can because I don't know if
I'm gonna feel like doing it the next day. So uh. Anyway,
but these gyps and habitats. We were looking for Pinguicula
gypsy cola, which is uh, and there was also Pingwicula
tataki I. But of course when you go looking for
one plant and it's a rare plant, and then especially
in a daphic endemic meansing meaning it only grows on
a certain soil type, you end up encountering a number
of extremely other unique and interesting plants like pileaa ribe, palaya,
ribbi ri i b ae. I guess that's what. I
guess that's how you pronounce it rebuy and uh that
that's a That was a fuck the gypsum coffee fern.
You know the genus Poleaia. You know you got polea
andromettap i. Thing is it andro metafolia? You got Plaatropapuia
in the Midwest and the east. He got the whole
post of pelaya species. They're in the family there at
ac in the Kylanthoid fern subfamily, the xeric fern subfamily,
which which also has astro Lipus and Mariopterus and Kylanthes
in it, et cetera. A whole fucking cool group of ferns.
But this pilaya was not. I mean, whenever you see pelaias,
they're generally smooth and glabrous, and you know, nice blue
glaucus colored to them. This thing was wooly as hell,
Like I thought it was an astro lepus at fir.
It was so god damn booley. It had huge tufts
of wool on the undersides of the leaves. Especially Uh,
it was just the one of the weirdest looking plants
I've seen in a while. And of course, you know,
when I when I got closer to it and it's
sooka a closer look, I realized, holy shit, this is
a pilaya, unlike any other member of that genus that
I've ever seen, and I kind of lost my shit.
And then I looked it up and I realized it's
on gypsum. This wool probably has to do with the
harsh substrate it's growing, and you know, it's a coping
strategy for the harsh gypsum. The more open exposed environment
exposed to the sun. Gypsum has the texture it's not sand,
it's got the texture of concrete of like bad concrete.
The way it dries, it's very soluble in water, becomes
mushy when it's wet, and when it dries it's like
really poorly mixed concrete, very abrasive. And oh two Cara
cars hanging out on a pack of serious marginitis. Whatn't
idylic scene? Fuck me got like, there's no build I
haven't seen any shit eating grins for ambulance chasers or
botox clinics or any of this stupid shit. What the
fuck was that? This is so hard to drive through
this stuff without stop at Gabriy we might have to stop.
We might we might have to stop at some point. Yeah,
we might have seemed like a nice spot, you know,
God damn it, Oh my god. Elevation three thousand feet. Yeah,
you go to like three thousand and thirty five hundred
feet in central Mexico and it's gonna be large. Cactuy there. Oh,
there's a it might be cool. It might be a
nice spot. Look at them Maritillo cacause it's the size
of a small house. What the fuck? So anyway, where
was I this pilea uh was just blow my mind?
I look it up. It was only described in two
thousand and one. I think George Yesktevich, I've always princes
pronounced his name, the nice kind gentleman that runs the
UT Austin Orbarium described it. He wrote the paper on
it in two thousand and one. Oh Jesus, there's just
you know, there's never enough time done here, right, And
my biggest fear is that because it's it's really I
worry that, you know that the shiny shit lifestyle of
of of the car slums and everything the United States has,
it's such a tempt it's such a temptation, you know,
I wonder. I worry that eventually Mexico is gonna do
the same thing to its land, just absolutely fucking into
a coma, make it as ugly as possible, but highly convenient.
It'll be very very convenient, uh, you know. And of
course the setup too for much of Mexico, the HETO system,
it's all tied to the Mexican Revolution, which I am
not knowledgeable enough about but I should definitely, uh definitely
learn more about. And you know, all this ship, all
this shit, all this stuff has a context, you know,
I think with the AHTO system too. Of course, developers
can't so easily and so readily purchase up land because
it's community owned, much of its community owned, and it's
you know, reserved for agriculture, et cetera. So it's not
but it's led to much more preserved land that's not
as destroyed like you have in the US, where every
last little bit, especially in Texas and Florida, every last
little bit of development that's gabbled up and it's it's crazy, man.
I remember, you know you see these uh this looks
really interesting, that looks like a hyptus or something on
the side of the road. You see this mentality, you know,
especially in Texas and Florida. I don't know where it
comes from. I think it's this this dumbass Southern mentality
and nofense. You know, this this we don't lack app
sid or Southern mentality where they instead of blaming the
developers and crooked politicians who are houring their land out
and selling them out, they blame you know, people that
move there, like just other you know, middle class or
working class schmucks who are getting fucked by the same system,
you know, and then end up moving to these places
trying to you know, find whatever, find cheaper housing or
find a better life whatever. So fucking stupid. You know,
you really got to snap those people as that come
from that duped mentality, you know, blame the little guy
and just you know, avoid blaming the uh it's really
ugly qualities and human beings, you know, instead of blaming
the people in power that are fucking you blaming anyway
they don't want to get distracted. But that's gonna happen
a lot more in this podcast. But the gypsum was
just fucking. This pinguicula, by the way, which was growing
sympatrically growing next to this pilea, was absolutely insane. It's
one of the most insane looking plants and certainly the
most insane pinguacula that I've ever seen, and I've seen
Pinguicula castabitoana and Dominican Republic that'say epiphytic one that's highly poached.
I only found one or two plants, and I had
to climb a tree to get to them. But uh,
you know, really wet cool habitat cool and wet habitat
everything draped in moss that was in the dr uh
and and that was a wild one. But this thing
just looks absolutely insane. It's growing in gypsum. This These
stressful soils make plants look fucking insane, whether you're talking
about the quartzite sandstone in Brazil or serpentine in California,
or elateritic soils like in h i own California, or
even sand dunes to a lesser excent. I guess on
sand dunes you just get a lot of hairy plants,
and you know, long tapering root systems that resemble the
hold fasts of kelp. But you know, but whatever, the
quartzite and the gypsum especially make plants look fucking insane.
They they cause plants to evolve that just look absolutely nuts.
And this pinguicula is probably the best example of it.
And I didn't catch a flowering. Gabrielle was here two
or three weeks ago, caught it flowering. I did not
catch a flowering. He's doing tours, by the way, you
want to go on a tour with this guy, you
hit him up. He's what is it, cactus under the sun. Yeah,
he's doing these tours and stuff. He'll take you out there.
He'll show you where all the nice bathrooms are. He'll
he'll show you, you know, the good spots to you
don't drink coffee, but they'll show you the good spots.
To hit him up, you know, I'll try and get
my friends some business. Here, give me a fucking break. Okay,
come out here. Hit him up. He'll think you're right.
He got a nice Nissan too, But uh, anyway, Jesus Christ,
ay fag anyway. Yeah, So pinglicular gips. It's got like
many of the Mexican pings, as we refer to them
in the in the trade, they're uh, you know, they're
they're generally prefer more shadier sights. And most oh, yeah,
there we go, We're now we're in correct. Throw how nice.
It feels good to be back in care thora. And
so they got you know, they got winter leaves and
summer leaves. That's because Mexico has a dry winter season.
And what the fuck is that beautiful composite Jesus Christ.
And then it's got a summer Oh it looks is
it a montana or a small anthus? I don't know.
It's it's a ruteral plant. It's thriving on the side
of the road and it's about twelve feet fifteen feet tall. So,
because the summer season is wet, they they they've got
different leaves. And then the winter, during the drier winters,
they get these tightly compact, more compact, tightly wound rosettes,
spiral rosettes of leaves. But their summer leaves look insane.
They look like octopus or squid leaves. They're very long
enthicles for trapping those tiny flies and shit that end up.
And again I'm so curious what pollinates this thing? When
what does it mostly eat? Right? And of course we
know why it evolved. I mean, most carnivorous plants you know,
growing in water logged wet areas that that are you know,
have inaccessible nitrogen, are very nutrient poor, you know, like
bogs and stuff. But gypsum also has is very nutrient poor.
It's got inaccessible nutrients in it and presumably a very
very high pH and so that is what's selected for
the evolution of a gypsum endemic pinguicular. There was a
pinguicula growing nearby, and at some point in the last
every many millions of years, and seeds got into the
gypsum and most died and couldn't survive, but then some could,
and then you end up eventually, after so many generations
and natural selection, you end up with a gypsum endemic pinguicula,
and boy does it look nuts. And then Pinwicula tatakia
is another gypsum endemic ping and it was growing in
the same fucking habitat like six feet away from a
cactus from Trebnocarpus lowie i, which is that's another gypsum endemic,
I think, right, which is sunk into the ground, suck
sunk into this crust, I mean, and it looks the
gypsum looks like sand castles too, like the crust does.
And it can be hollow on the inside because water
dissolves of Gypsum's very soluble in water, much more so
than limestone, and so uh, you know that's why you
never find it really in high, higher rainfall environments. Right,
that's part of the reason gypsum. And you see that
horse at a giant cock and I can't then see it? God,
damn it, fuck, why did I look? What's wrong with me?
I'm like a twelve year old boy with a sense
of toilet humor. The thing was two feet long anyway,
So so anyway, so the you know, does all this
dictates how And gypsum, of course is basically sheet. Rocket's
just basically dry wall, so you know, And there's parts
of these gypsum hillsides where you can knock on it
and you can hear that it's it's hollow. It's like,
you know, fifteen inches hollow inside because it's all been
you know, water watered out, weathered out, dissolved out, but
the crust is left wild stuff. Man. But yeah, so
there was a cactus growing six feet away from this
Pinguicula tatakii, which is as much smaller. Pinguicula doesn't look
that wild. It looks like any normal ping but and
not as big with the gypsum. Philo was just insane.
Some of these rosettes with the summer leaves, with the
tentacles where god damn, they had to be I don't know,
eight to ten inches across, I mean, very large. And
then the rosettes are much more you know, in preparation
for the dry season, are much more compact. And then,
of course I wonder what the roots look like, because
the roots on most pinguiculous, don't you know, if you
grow them cultivation, like you know, people have given me
pinwiculos over the years. I keep them alive. They produce offsets.
I give them to other people. I think I've got
Gigantia and a few others, some hybrids that drew from
carnivoro made and I got mine under lights relatively seventeen
thousand locks under these let these spider farmer lights. Pinwiculas
like shade. But you know, gigantia does really well in cultivation,
and so you just keep it in a little a
little tray full of water. You keep it in a
pot that's then in a tray full of water, and
I dump all the mosquitoes I catching them a mosquito
trap on it, and feed them. And because I feed
it a lot, it produces numerous offsets, which I then
root and give to other people. Everybody should have a pinwicular.
They do probably do fine in a kitchen window. You know,
there's probably enough light there, even though it's so much
darker inside than outside, there's probably enough light there to
grow up pink and so just don't let it dry out.
They don't like that. But these were growing on dry soil, too,
which is not so I mean, I guess once they're established,
they probably established during the wet season. The sea is
absolutely fucking tiny. But once they established during the wet
feet and then they're they're they're good to go, and
they could just hold in through the summers. But god damn,
there was so much other wild ship on the slope
above this, and they're going all up and down this
little like cut in the in this gypsum rock wall.
You know, twenty thirty feet high. They're all the way
up with that pialaa and Selaginella gypsophila. The quote resurrection fern,
which is not a it's not a fern at all.
It's a lyco fight. But another beautiful rosette. Oh wow,
what the fuck? Oh that's that cool anta cardiac member.
That would be a cool thing, because yeah, if you
find a place to stop, let's stop here. I love
my you rush you all containing ana cards. It's like
a giant tree ana card. What the fuck is that?
Supo smodingium? I think, yeah, we should stuck you stop here?
Is it possible? Is there enough for real? Oh? Yeah,
it's good. That's a little shrine. They're gonna make one
for us when we drive off the road. Oh it was,
it's nice. Now we're even lower. Now we're sixteen hundred
feet elevation. Very pleasant temperatures, but got to be hot
as balls in the summer. I just we stopped to
look at these monster pseudosmodingium, which are a rush you
all containing member of the poison oak and mango family, anacardiac.
And this one was like eighteen feet tall, six meters tall,
you know, and then you stop to look at one
thing and you look at other things. That was only
the only took me like fifteen minutes, which isn't bad
for me because normally I take a lot longer. But
I saw this really cool back arris relative coyote bush
relative with you know, golf ball sized flowers on it,
maybe a little bit smaller, but they almost look that,
you know, multi serial fatories, almost looked like like thistle flowers.
It was like a thistle meta coyote bush, but it
wasn't spiny, just talking about the flowerhead. And then there
was night of skulls there too, the malamuhir, the stinging
member of U four bac and uh and a bunch
of Cordia bossierra of course as well, and then some
little mammalarias on the side of the rocks. And then
I saw not all grass Melinus rappents, which is a
horrible invasive on the rocks too, getting established. So maybe
in a decade or two it'll be all over the
fucking roadsides here, who knows. I was talking to my
friend Lily, who lives in Florida, where that species is
especially bad, really bad invasive, and I guess some dude
from where it's native. I think it was in the
media message there and said it was wild to see
it everywhere because where he lives, where it's native, it's
like a small component of the flora which is wild,
which is the same thing kutsu does. Where it's native.
Kudzu's like a small it's it's not super dominant where
it's native, where it evolved, you know, something like the
perma culture. No offense permaculture, you know, invasive species denialists.
Not all ashtag, not all perma culture. It's just the
ones I like to make fun of because they don't
believe an ecology. This is where they kind of don't
get it, you know, they just they don't realize how
small their lens on the world is and how narrow
and myopic you know it is. And uh, anyway, but
maybe you know, everybody comes around. Eventually, people can come around,
they can figure it out. So yeah, anyway, Uh, but
where we were talking about gypsum habitats in the way
be they owned. So what was really cool was above
the slopes of this gypsum was a whole bunch of
plants that I know from South Texas now Wattlia hype Luca,
the artist formerly known as guok Nadia hype Luca sunflower
family Asta seed. It's like a small tree. These were large.
We've actually got some at thorn scrub on our you know,
our our conservation property, but they top out it like
five feet taller. And then there was Karwinsky a hum
both Yana as well and Senegalia BERLANDI rise so many
plants I know from South Texas, but there they all
look much healthier, you know, at forty six hundred feet
in San Luis Poto c And even though they were
growing on gypsum and growing right above gypsum. You know,
it's I think it's a good indicator for me for
what South Texas may have been like during the Pleistiscene,
when it was no doubt still hottest balls in the summer,
but generally much milder. And so I think the general
trend that it the idea that it gives me is that,
you know, South Texas, despite its proximity to the coast,
is going to be becoming a lot hotter with climate change,
and probably more you know, for a while more volatile
temperature dips and drops in the winter because the jet
streams all fucked up, and the jet stream you know,
circumnavigating the going around the higher latitudes is what helps
keep all that cold air up top, so you can
have hotter summers and then cooler winters for a while
as well, until finally it just gets so hot and
so dry. I think, you know, were there no humans
around in climate change was doing what it was with
South Texas, which some of those plants, eventually it would
just get too hot for them, you know, because they
look the ones in South Texas just looks so much
more rough and stressed than the ones that you see
at higher elevations further south in Mexico, you know, like
the Nahualia and the Karwinskia, et cetera. And there was
even I mean there's black brush here of a chili
or rigidula, and uh oh, yeah, there was that lipia.
I forget. It's not oregonoides. It's the other one, the
one that smells like a reggano verbonac that I'd like.
Usually it native landscaping in South Texas because it can
take full sun and it actually prefers not to be watered.
Once it's established that rots really easily and it smells delightful.
There was also turnera the fusa. Where did I see?
I think I saw that at the gypsum area too,
Damiana passive flora pass the floor ac he doesn't look
anything like a passion flower by though it's a small
woody subshrub. Oh yeah, no, I saw that yesterday when
we were looking at some of the cool kac by
the aerocarpus and other stuff. So anyway, so that night
then we stayed in this this beautiful Taxodium ucranadum grove.
You know, I was still just kind of wonderfully shell
shocked from experiencing all the gyps and endemics. And you know,
it's always fun. You photograph this shit and then you
I take, you know, thousands of photos, and then I
go back and the photos are all I have unless
I collect an urbarium specimen. All I have to reference
that plant and uh, and then you find out what
it is and you're just you know, blown away, You're
like holy fuck, because you you know, especially you've got
some context for other plant families, if you've got an
awareness of taxonomy and different plant communities from this continent,
but maybe at higher latitudes or higher elevations, whatever, and
you just kind of get blown away. You start realizing
all these different variations that evolution has produced on a theme.
And so like when I saw that poleaia, I was like,
this is fucking insane. I've never seen a such a
wooly palaya, like they're normally really smooth and glaborous. And yeah,
it's just not just natural selection over many generations and thousands,
tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years.
So uh, that's part of that. I mean, that's most
of the fun in this. That's where the little shots
that dopamine come from. And then of course just realizing
the close ties between geology and plant life as well.
But that day, the night, we stayed in this this
monazum of Cyprus grove and it was in like this
kind of basin. It's very salty soil, but there was
a spring nearby that kind of looked like the San
Marcos River watershed. The you know, the water that was
coming out of it was blue, indicating it probably had
bicarb dissolved by carbonate in it, coming from the surrounding limestone,
which is the same thing you get in the charstick
watersheds of the San Marcos River up there, Buffland Marcus,
Texas and uh, obey, I don't know, it's a fake.
Holy shit, we've had some rough run ins with topees. Man,
just fucking woom boom, just fucking you know, you're gonna
need new shocks at some point here soon. But uh,
but yeah, the uh, the water was like this beautiful blue,
and then there was a really dominant grass species that
was everywhere, and then these just huge beautiful redwood relatives
Mana zuma, Cyprus texadium of grenadum, the same species that
grows up in Uvalde, Texas and Austin, Texas, which you know,
Texas botanists have been mistakenly referring to is just a
different kind of Taxodium distant him. It's just different. It's
just a little bit different because it's a different species,
because it's the northern extent of the ring. Texas just
refuses to accept that it's basically Mexico, that it's basically Mexican.
And it's like they're with so many plants, like they
called the Texas madrone when ninety five ninety six percent
of the populations in Mexico so funny, man, it really is.
It's a you know, well, we were our own country.
You were your own country for nine years, buddy, after
you stole it from Mexico and then you were going broke.
So you find you realize you that joined the union. Anyway, Oh,
fucking Texas pri It's just like sports team pride. Texas
pride like Chicago. I don't have Chicago. Probably love Chicago.
It's a shithole in many ways. It's also a wonderful
city in many ways that Texas couldn't hold a fucking
candle to. But I don't have Chicago pride. It's just
where I'm frog of a fuck. We could have been
born there, I could have been born in Iowa. I'm
glad I was born in Chicago. But you know, this
is Texas pride. It's just ego compensating for insecurity and
lack of self exploration and lack of self depth. Anyway,
So this taxodium u crenadum grove was amazing, and then
we saw it later in the day from this really
dry limestone hill covered in ocatillo's and uh, some really
cool plants. I saw Neo Pringlia integrifolio, which is a
very common UH dry shrub that's in the willow family
Sela Casey and UH. There was also Nerdsta used to
be Siguria Sigaria mexicana and now it's Nernstia mexicana. But
it's it's a monotypic genus, and it's the only member
of UH of its genus, and it's the only member
that I know of that's a like a small tree
to shrub in ruby Ace the coffee family. It's crazy, man,
it's fucking what. It's got the opposite leaves and their
petiole or stipules. At first, I thought it was some
sort of you know, mandavilla or something, because there was
a flower not open, and then I saw the ovary
the fruit, and I realized, that's not a fucking a
postinacious flower. That doesn't look like a postaace uh at all.
This is Rubyac. And then I had to figure out
what it is and I went to sign it. Southwest
Biodiversity dot orgon did a collection search for Rubyac and
San Luis Poto c and that was one of the
things that came up, and I was like, what the
fuck is this? Oh Jesus, Okay, I took a little
break just now. And now we're in the Sierra Gorda
where I don't know, roughly thirty seven hundred feet which it.
But we're in this mountain range, and so it's not
you know, even though we're relatively low, it's not cactus habitat.
This is like we're going through an arroyo filled with
these giant sycamore right now, these giant Platinus species with
beautiful white trunks. There was apparently a fire in some
of it. But uh, but the ones, I mean, the fuck.
They they're huge trees. They're like eighty feet tall. It's
it's relatively music. It's a really fucking cool habitat here,
and it's again it's craziest. It's I think it's just
more wet because we're in the Sierra Gorda mountain range.
Only Sierra Gorda. Fucking balls, man, Oh is that a
just scale. There's a bamboo. Oh my god. We might
have to stop and get some photos of us at
some point. I don't know. God, damn it, it's so
hard to make it anywhere. Juniper is flaccida, the flaccid juniper,
the weeping juniper, which you know, you can grow that
in West Texas, fine, but no one's no one's doing it.
No one's growing all the rare stuff. It only occurs
in the United States in Big Bend National Park, which
I guess has been fucking swamp lately. God, you couldn't
pay me to go there right now. But h just
mobbed with people like a zoo. But god damn, there's
some incredible habitat. So anyway, what was I talking about?
Oh there's a cropia. Yeah, man, this is really when
this is all just it's just so rocky. There's all
these little nooks and crannies that it's and lots of
moisture that it's it's even though we're not very high up,
it's still pretty pretty loaded with, you know, a wetter habitat.
But I think up on the ridges, definitely, it looks
a little bit drier, looking like, you know, seven hundred
feet up with Steve Cliff. Holy fuck, what's this? That's
just wow? Fuck? Okay, you know I might have to
stop and take a piss break here and look at
some cool stuff. You gotta stop, okay, give me a second.
Oh boy, that was nice fucking see here and Gordon
I'm gonna have to come back here and spend the
couple weeks sometime. So now we're at six thousand feet.
We've hit the pines, the oaks, the alders, the cypresses.
We just stopped to look at a rock wall covered
in a gave mitas, and like everything else, he stopped
to see one thing, and you see ten more things.
I saw probably the largest flowered menzilia that I've ever
seen outside of Menzia levaculis, which grows in northern California. Uh.
And it was growing with like a salina serious and
epiphitic cactus and at Cavaria species that had a stem
like a coalescent at cavaria, and then a gave mitas
just all over the rock walls. It's probably a common menzilia,
because it was certainly common in this habitat. The flowers
were like the size of baseballs orange. I thought it
was some sort of composite, you know, a member of
Esta raci. But no, it was a fucking mint. What
the fuck is this pine? No, God, we have to
stop again. You see a nice piss spot with the pines. Yay, God,
Danny's weeping pines. These beautiful weeping fucking pines. God is
just so gorgeous. And again, if this was the US,
this would be so much more developed with dumb shit.
And I don't know, man anyway, but yeah, there's alders.
And then I regret not getting not documenting the platinus.
I just saw the platinus, the sycamore. But just epic, man,
just epic. There was Decatropis by color, which is a
really cool member of rutaesi, the citrus family, with panicles
of white flowers and rusty orange hairs on the undersides
of the leaves. The leaves are smooth up top and
of course Harry and the undersides indicating a wet, dry
season at tropical latitudes. And you know, it's just the
fucking wonderful time appearance. But yeah, now we're at six
thousand feet and it's starting to sixty five hundred feet
excuse me, and it's starting to feel like some of
the cloud forests of of Wahaka or in any other
cloud for us wonderful Salvia species right there. Goddamn, it's
gonna be hard to record a podcast, not because there's
just there's there's there's too much good ship to see
and it's distracting, and it's just gonna be me calling
out names, you know, botanical names like a ping pong ball,
just this and that and this and that and but
these oaks are incredible too. Again, you could just come
down here and spend a few weeks, manutes. There's just
document everything, you know, blow through a couple of SD cards,
make some irbarium collections, go to there we go. Oh
Jesus Christ, that's a beautiful pile. Oh we got these steviacious,
these upatoriacious bastards on the side, these purple flowers. They
look like a kind of cleanium, but are not. Okay,
give me a second here, Oh, I said, wow, you know, okay,
So we just stopped to look at some weeping pines,
which I, you know, wish I could tell you the
species name. It's on the tip of my tongue because
it's quite famous, at least among pine nerds conifer enthusiasts,
but I can't tell you what it is. And there
was something I thought was an oak that turned out
to be Circocarpus macrophilus. So if I thought it was
an oak, that kind of gives you an idea of
this stature. Of how big it was, which is odd
for circle carpus, it still might have been an oak.
The bark looked very oak like. It was not smooth
like I generally think of circle carpas, but it had,
you know, really distinct venation on the leaves and kind
of alder like leaves, like a serrate margin. But I
couldn't find any flowers or fruits. But there were acorns
on the ground, and there was nothing else really that
it seemed like those acorns could come from. And then
there was Juniperus flaccida again, the weeping juniper, and then
two different Stevias species, and it's a ton of cool shit.
Oh there was a Castellea to And now we're at
eighty six hundred feet going past these hills just covered
in pines. The slopes covered in pines. We got glaucus pines,
we got dur green pines, we got weeping pines, we
got all kind of pines you need. If we don't
got the kind of pine you're looking for, you don't
need it. Wild shit, man, that the fucking diversity here
is in the Sierra Gorda. Who knew? I mean, I
guess many people knew. If they're familiar with Mexican plants.
Oh there's a pinion. There's a fourth species of pine,
but you know there's it's man, it's really you can
see why they made a giant biosphere reserve here because
it's this huge, just dome of mountains with all kinds
of little microclimates and nooks and crannies and tons of
endemism and diversity and just a really special, fantastic place.
So anyway, but yeah, you know, we got we were
kind of like pressed for time, so we gotta we
gotta get down into the other side and then head
up to Sira elductor. But uh, when was that time?
Like what Fortes? We know, we don't even finish talking
about the Taxodium uk grenadum, the the fifteen hundred year
old individual that actually had the boreholes to prove it
it had actually been cord and it was, you know,
this massive, It had this they get this spiraling bark
when they're older. It's really curious, beautiful spiraling bark. And
it was growing in this you know, this grove of
them that was only there because there was a spring
coming up through the karstick limestone substrate. And again the
water was blue because of the dissolved by carbonate in it,
which comes from the rock. Really special fucking place. Oh yeah,
And there was an endangered pupfish there, the checkered pupfish
of Saint Louis poto seed, the long lost checkered pupfish
of Saint Louis poto seed. She I want to get
like a like a painting done on my toilet seat
of the checkered puppish. It was a cute, little, fucking
cute little basroom. There were a bunch of them inside
the uh inside this crystal blue muhlenbergia. Everywhere. There was
some weird polygola polygalasi that Gabrielle saw flowering last time
that he was showing me pictures of it looked like
a succulent POLYGALACEI. What was the name of this species
name Turkeita t U r g I d A. But yeah,
so that was that was a fucking wonderful. And then
there was a lyceum there too, very salty soil. The
gentleman we spoke to who lived nearby city got bit
by a rattlesnake, presumably during the summer. It's rebably a
mean aggressive snake. I wonder if it was a scoute latus.
You can get those done here, but I was hoping
to see a rattlesnake. But near that Monuzuma cypress grove,
I mean, not too far off, was some really cool
cryptic cacti that grow and what looks like an otherwise boring,
boring habitat, you know, just miscuaits prinkly pears, species of
sueta that sell tolerance, succulent member of the Amaranthesi, the
spinach family order carryophiles, of course, indicated about the betal
aine pigments and the succulents. And there was Maytinis phil anthoides,
which was a large shrub here. We get that in
South Texas as well, but it's only tops out of
like two or three feet, and then it grows along
the coast, like kind of near Boca Chica, you know
where h fucking elon that, you know, the gym with
the laminated face, and you know who refused to go
to therapy under any circumstances and is desperately in need
of it. You know, just you got almost a trillion
dollars and you're still so desperate for validation. Anyway, near
where he built this little spaceport that's where that Meetenis
phil Anthoides grows. But again it doesn't get that big.
This was a large I mean, I could tell it
was a maintenis. It might be a different species of Meetinis.
It's certainly matinis. It's certainly is cellustraci, glabrous ovate leaves,
very waxy, thicking, coryaceous, and and then tiny little flowers.
But yeah, and then there was turbino car turbenic karpus
loaf of froides, supposedly because it looks like a lofaffra,
I did not happen to think so. But it was
a beautiful cactus. Nonetheless, yeah, I guess it had, you know,
this similar lobe structure. We did see Lafafa cosii later
this same day, and so after seeing it, I can
confirm that, yes, indeed, it does look much different than
Lofafera william c I. And I haven't seen any clumping
individuals of Lafafera corecii named after cors some German bastard
no offensive music in this podcast. Douty's listened to this podcast.
I say, bastard, you know, lovingly, warm warmly, you know,
I don't know, I just I hate eponyms though you can't.
You can't get mad at me for Oh see, now
we're going down here. Now we're going down on the
other side of a Sierra Gorda and this is kind
of like open rocky grass. It definitely dryer. Oh my god,
don't even get me looking at the fucking clips. We
have this job again. Fuck, I'm gonna do this whole
thing on foot sometime, you know, with a donkey, and
could get a donkey if you ever wanted to have
a donkey before. They're fucking cool man, right, they're kind
of like dogs. I'd put a little hat on it
and ship and weight and that's what I would do. Man.
That's the way to travel is you know, after everything
crashes and you know it goes to ship and you
just get yourself a donkey and just travel the country
on foot. You know. Yeah, that's the way to do it.
You know. You know you're American. You want to lose
some weight, get yourself a donkey, and go hike the
you know, some of those long distance hiking trails before
Trump sells them to a mining companies and developers, you know.
But yeah, this, uh, this, this, it was remarkable how
much this area where this turbino carpas grows felt like
some of the salty you know they smell. You can
smell the air. It smells briny and somewhat acrid and
biological but not revolting, but it definitely smells. It reminds
me of parts of South Texas, Like there's this spot,
holy shit, blind kerb Okay, all right, a holly fuck
who We're gonna become one of those little crosses on
the side of the road. You know. It's, oh yeah,
the Mexican driving thing is really stressed to me. We'll say, okay,
I gotta just get used to you know. I like
it when there's like it's a two lane road, but
they're wide lanes and you got you can fit three
cars on them. That's fucking you want to get the
adrenaline pumpin'. It's like that scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles,
you know, when when Steve Martin looks over and John
Candy's wearing a giant Spandex devil suit, you know, and
their whole life flashes before their rise. It's pretty marvelous.
It's a marvelous scene. It's fucking hilarious. He said, to
cut a white John Canty movie at some point. You know,
wife should rewatch that. It'll really loosen the mood from
the distopic. Man, I flew out of fucking Austin because
it was cheaper than flying from near my house. And
I could just leave the dog with Hovey air and
you know, and go see some friends, you know, kick
it with the kick it with Hovey the night before
and then whatever. And I flew out of Austin. Was
such a fucking nightmare, just just packed, asked to nose
six in the morning, Just miserable flying experience, and everyone's
in a bad mood and hates each other. Well, partially
because it's the United States and that's just the general
vibe there, and also because everyone's packed, ask to nose
in the airport and traveling for the holidays. It's a
horrible time to fly. You look how dry it is here.
Now you can see we're really in that rain shadow
on the west side of a beautiful sea of Gorda. God,
what the fuck, man, there's so much cool shit. Oh
my god, I can't Yeah, man, it's crazy, there's and
there's not a lot of like you look at I
Naturalist for Carethro and San Louis Potosi, and there's not
a lot of uh of observation. So we really need
to convince all our Mexican listeners and friends to start
using the shit out of I Naturalists. Please God, I
need to just learn fluent Spanish, you know, I really
need the It's pathetic that I don't because I could, really,
you know, I do a Spanish language version of a
crime Pace podcast and get what the fuck? Ah? Fuck? No,
oh we have to stay. What's this? Is that a Blia?
Oh no, that's a Chilians Garcia in ah gove a
Garcia and those there's nowhere to park? Huh yeahs fuck
so oh there. Now we're already hitting Martillo cactus. What
elevation we are now seventy three hundred feet and there's
Martillo cactus And that tells you what we're trying out.
All right, we're drawing it. We're still pretty high up,
but we're it's drying out. There's no thread of frost,
I guess, despite being so high up. But it reads
the rain shadow effect. It's elevation and the rain shadow
effect and proximity to a warm body of water that's
evaporating moisture, and if it depending if there's a mountain
range between you and that warm body of water that's
evaporating moisture, that like, in this case, the ocean. So
god damn. Yeah, it is just naked not naked gealgae,
but it's shrubling. It feels like parts of Chile or California.
What is that? Oh? This is that a sola? Yeah?
God damn. But anyway, yeah, so it's it's really whoo
oh fuck me, what's that? Thank god? That looked incredible. Fuck. Oh,
there's so much amazing stuff. Okay, I'm coming back to
see your gorda. That's what's happening at some point here,
you know. But it seems like a lot of stuff
actually flowers during the winter dry season, which would make
sense because it's a good time to really capitalize on
pollinators because it's still warm out, but it's the dry season.
There's not a lot of other stuff going off, so
there's presumably a benefit to that. Yeah, wild. I wonder
how many plants have their phonology set to the flower
during the dry season. Anyway. So yeah, so we were
at this taxodium spot and then I think that we were.
Elevation here was roughly thirty six hundred feet and it
was this beautiful spring fed pool filled with cool fish
and a really unique Nymphaea species water lily species, and
it was so so I guess it must be so
gorgeous when at flowers that there was even a sign
ups telling the locals, not the not to take it.
You know, so don't drink too much alcohol, you know,
no tiar basura, don't dump your trash, and also don't
take these fucking water lilies, even though you might feel
inclined to because because they're they're so gorgeous, you know,
which is if there's if you're if you have to
tell non plant people not to collect the plant, that
must be pretty cool. But and it did. It had
these like aquatic basal leaves and then the stalks you
know that come up from below, uh, and then have
the actual floating leaves on that too, So it had
two different kinds of leaves. It was really cool. None
were flowering, one was about the flower but yeah, and
then just the hop skip and a jump away was
the Turberinocarpus LoVa for roidies. And again just this habitat
looks like some of the salty the salty soiled misky
quote wastelands of South Texas. But it's filled with corafanta
maista blenzes and and the turbinicarpus Lofa feroides cryptically hiding
in the soil, like eighty percent of the stem underground
and then just just a you know, because cact there
just stems, right, even if it's like a globe shaped cactus,
and then the top ten or twenty percent poking out
at the soil surface. And so yeah, really fucking cool
to see. And this sueda, this this succulent amarant thesy
that loves salty soil was dominant there, and again very
salty because it's this basin surrounded by these mountains. Instead
of grain, water chemically weathers the limestone, dissolves some of
the minerals, washes it into the basin, and then evaporates,
you know, because it's hot as balls for three quarters
of the year and evaporates in the dry climate, it
leaves all the salt behind, so it end up you know.
That's why most cacti in my experience, seemed to be
very tolerant of falty soil, right like if you got
some hard water coming out of your half. You know,
at least once they reach a certain size, it seems
like they can tolerat it because the ship coming out
of the sky. The rain obviously does not have minerals
as at, but a lot of tap water does. What
the fuck is that blue thing down there? A blue
plant on Green Hills? Wow? Oh, it's one of these
What is is that a leuco violent? What the fuck is? Like? Fuck? Okay,
if we see if you find a spot where one
could presumably urinate and and also take a photo of
that plant. Oh shit, okay, I'm just gonna do. It's
gonna be real quick. All right. I don't know where
I left you just now, but we're starting again. It's
a beautiful morning here in Visa n and uh oh wow.
All the dahlia is going off, Dahlia by colors. These
these two foot tall pink shrubs we just passed the marble.
I don't know what they were doing or some with marble.
They were pulverizing it. They're cutting it somehow, And there's
it's just it looks like wildfire smoke. There's like white
dust over all the shrubs and all over all the
cars and shit, and you have to drive through it.
You kind of roll up your windows and hold your breath.
It's kind of wild. But we had a really nice
day yesterday up to up to ten thousand, five hundred
feet elevation, it's like thirty one hundred meters. Got to
see the winter leaves on the Bigwcula mornensis that grows
up there, and it grows with a bunch of cool
kylanthoid ferns. Goddamn, this day is beautiful bunch of cool
caylanthoid ferns beneath this canopy of oak cover next to
a Gave montana in tetra chiron webstery, which is a
little labouru sleeved composite with opposite leaves. And right now
we're going to check out the Pinus pinciana Venus pinciana,
the weeping Mexican pinion pine. Miss I'm stoked to see
if it's actually this. It's it's beautiful, it's beauty. It's
a beautiful fucking pine. And I think it's cold hearty
to like like negative six celsius whatever that is, what
it is, that like eighteen degrees fahrenheit twenty anyway. But yeah,
really really good day yesterday. And I got to see
that astro Lipus that that doesn't even have a name
yet because it hasn't been described. Who is that luca
phylum ambiguoum over there, one of the another Siniso species?
Oh holy shit, a bunch of pack is serious, margin
adi is Goddamn. There's so much good stuff to see
in a side of a row that's just really bringing
out the ad D.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get a following his damn Jane, because
it's the jay that disperses the pinion pine seeds. But
it's not letting me get close through it. It's driving
me fucking nuts. Okay, So now you know that was
kind of frustrating. I was trying to I mean, it
was wonderful to see, though I was about to dip out.
I was in the pinion pine grove, these beautiful weeping
pinions on this hillside growing with the croton species with
silvery leaves to about three feet tall. A Porophylum marigold
tribe of astac This Porophleum smelled absolutely delicious. It smelled
so fantastic.
Speaker 1: I got one on the car right now, and it's
got these like deep purple waxy and volacars on the
flower heads, no rays, I mean the flowers I'll put on.
We want to check out my I ned if you
want to see what it looks like. It'll be, you know,
under the genus porophylum po ro o, but really unique
flower heads on it. And there was a whole bunch
of other stuff. There was a shrub that seemed like
it was in polygonac but it it looked like a
like a woody buckwheat to like seven feet tall. Slightly
different flower structures, so it's probably a different genus, but
definitely looked polygonaceous, but I also could be totally wrong.
And then and then I was about to dip out
go down. There was a castella's you know, a bunch
of stuff's going dormant, going dry. There was a gaves
alone a cant there with the those wavy ass spines
on the margins of the leaves. It's a really rich site.
Oh and junipers flatted of course too. And then you
know I was leaving, this mob of blue jays, rather
large jays, I think it was Mexican jays came through
and that was the sounds you heard, and of course
those are what dispersed the seeds of this pinion pine,
you knows. And that's a that's a symbiotic relationship that
goes on with many pines actually, whether it's Clark's nut
cracker and the white bark pines in northern California, or
you know, scrub jays used to do that in Oakley
and with the coast life oaks that you know, they
plant these things, These these cute little bastards plant these
things and they only recover about half of what they plant,
and the rest then germinate and turn into new trees.
But I did not find a lot of cones. Oh
my god, fuck me, is that all isolato serious? It
almost looks like pack is serious what we're having that really?
Maybe it's serious. We're going back up and we just
saw this massive flank of this massive slope covered in
these tall, you know, multi stem columnar cacti. But uh, anyway,
you know, so this, uh, these jays dispersed the seed.
They basically plant new forests of this this tree. But
I couldn't find many cones. There were some old cones,
it looked like they maybe these trees were stressed a
little bit. Most of them looked somewhat healthy, but a
couple were dying. I don't know if it's you know,
a drought year or what, but HiT's man, it was
a fucking beautiful It's a beautiful sight, you know, an
idyllic sight that only the Mexican countryside can offer. Gabriel
has been very tolerant of my ranting. I have to say,
it's been thank you by the way, you know. But uh,
now we're going up again. We I had to stop
and look at this forest of isolato series discreto femness.
This succulent composite is covering these shale hills. You could
see these it's not shale hills, they're fucking shale rock
walls on this sketchy winding road. You know, it's nice
when you pass the trucks at you know, forty miles
per hour and these sketchy winding roads. Here. It is
mid December, it's it's warm, it's hot as balls and
cools off at night. Best time to visit Grethro at
least the dry slopes. And so we're going up to
go check out some of the wetter forests in this
yere at Gorda, but there was I just saw pseudo Smodingium.
If you can spit that fucking genus name out. God.
These fucking dahlias man the daily yeah, bicolor, it's just
fucking gorgeous. But Pseudosmodingium, as you rush you all in it,
it's so you know, the allergenic compound. That's some poison ivy.
It's a relative of poison ivy. It's an antacardiac. It's
really cool genus. I saw one monstrous species of Pseudosmodingium
yesterday in the hills, growing with Cordia bossierra and some
other really cool shit. But you know it's it's got
more rounded leaf margins. And then I saw Pseudosmodingium andrew
si uh just now and yesterday at a site that
we stopped at that had strombocact the sun it and
you know this it like rooss, like the sycamore with
which it's related. It turns this beautiful red color when
it's about to drop its leaves as it reabsorbs the
chlorophyll and the the anthosygn and pigments are left behind,
and you know, same thing rous does you know roosts
in the temperate latitudes. Is doing it because of it's
you know, anticipation of the cold winter here. It's doing
it just because of the drought season, the winter dry season.
Still hot as balls. Oh yeah, look there's that Lucophylum
ambigue them all up in those goddamn hills. So uh. Anyway,
we just stopped to look for la for the fusa
at a spot that a friend had given us. But
it had been such a good rain year that the
grasses had kind of created this, you know, this totally
dense understory beneath the vicelia and the mimosa shrubs, the
thorny shrubs. There was no catillo all over there too,
and a cool parthenium parthenium. But that's where this the
fusa grows, which is the false paoti. It looks like
a like a mint green doughnut that someone sat on.
It's got like a little dimple in the inside. But
you know, I'm sure it's probably there. We didn't see
any because there was there was so much grass, and
it was a native grass too. I saw this guy, man,
I've seen so many cool Mullenbergia species and there was boutlua.
I believe it was just Kurt of pendula. But some
of these fucking grasses are gorgeous, you know. But then
you go to like the what's the would I've been
calling the Sokolo the fucking Plaza Hard Dean Principal. Yeah,
you go to hard Dean Principal. You know, Mexico needs
a native plant movement too, because you go to the
hard Dean Principal and it's all these fucking avolita no
offense to the Appolitas. It's all these appolita shrubs, you know,
corny ship clones of stuff with the variegated leaves, no
no bearing on place or or pride and where you
live or anything, just this corny ship, you know. And
they I do like how they paint the bottoms of
the trees white. Do you know why they do that?
It's like this because of the dance they put like life,
does it really do? Does it really work? Yeah? They
put They looked like, uh, what's it? I forgot the
name of the powder. Oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah, well
well you know, it's it's a it's ath. I like
it because it's comforting to me in a way. This
reminds me of places. Oh wow, is that gog Nadia fock. Oh,
there's so much nice stuff. I don't know. Maybe we
should stop up here and look at it. See if
that's just a monster guck Nadia or a different coc
Nadia species or what. I can't tell. Just stopped for
a second up aeria. Well that was nice. We just
stopped and yeah it was Nihualia hype luca again, goog Nadia,
which we have at thorn Scrub and uh and Croton
and Signus and all these South Texas plants in tons
of Kowinskia as well, you know, worth five thousand feet
fifty four hundred feet in correctro The one thing we
don't get in South Texas which you know might be
worth growing there is Neopremia integrafolia, which is in the
willow family of salea casey. It's got these little winged fruits. Oh,
Gabriel's pissed in front of the truck right now. Okay,
my line of vision is cut off right where by
right up right above his done. It's good not trying,
not trying to give anybody a free show here, you know.
Uh got these mountains, man, they look like a like
a birthday cake that's been carved out with like a
stream of water. It's wild, all this cool limestone. So anyway,
we're gonna head up now to higher elevations. Uh. I
think there's like a disjunk stand of Douglas fir up
in these mountains, and then we're gonna fuck around and
see what we can find. Look for some I think
there's plotting us up there too. I want to I
definitely want to get get some footage of the sycamores
document them. I don't know if it's just playing Platinus
oxident tellus or whatever the ship they're calling it, but
it's definitely gonna be a different ecotype. I almost got
cream by a truck that was taking a wide berth
on this sketchy two lane road. These fucking trucks, some
of them more huge. Anyway, we don't even talk about
the Uh. The ephemeral lago and Co, which I was
skeptical was an actual different species from lofal for A.
Williams the truepeoti, But after seeing habitat and seeing the
different shape of the tubercules and the lobes, I'm convinced
that it is. And then Uh. Aerocarpus koshu bayanis named
after Princess Koshubile, the dumbest, dumbest fucking name. Slapdovski, slapped Ski,
Russian guy. You like to get beat on and slapped around.
You know, got these fucking every time, every eponym I
have to make fun of. But that was a that
was a really cool spot. And then oh yeah, on
a separate note, the the I saw a bamboo and
a native bamboo that, unlike the Asian bamboos, was not hollow.
Of course, it's a good diagnostic factor for if it's
the if it's an old world bamboo or a New
World one, and this was It was O Tatiya kumen
nata in the Sierra Gorda. This is like like seven
thousand feet growing with Menzelia hispida and Decatropis by color,
and a ton of other cool shit on this including
orchids and an echiandia species on this very steep slope
Odaitia ot A t e a A cuminata I guess
it's called Mexican weeping bimboo. But anyway, but yeah, anyway,
so back to the ephemeral lagoon. So we drove out
to this area after the Taxodium uk grenadum grow. We're
I don't know, thirty five hundred feet four thousand feet,
you know, lowland Mexico. I guess it's mid elevation, but
for most of the central Mexican plateau, that's a low elevation.
That's where the cool cat that are going to be.
And so we drove out to what looks like a
relatively barren area. It's you could tell it's a dry
lake bed that probably floods with a couple of inches
of water and then turns exceptionally muddy during the wet season.
And and you know, I've knowne about this psychology for
a while for Alberto Boiechi, another stupid eponym named after
a person it also grows. It's another species of lufafer
and other species of peyota that grows in this same
similar habitat. And they've occupied the psychology where they're underwater
for a couple of days during the rainy season. You know,
they're under a few inches of water, and then the
you know, as the water slowly evaporates and the mud
dries out, then they're just stuck in this, you know, perfectly,
like someone took a cement blade over it and smoothed
it out like they were laying cement, and just you know,
sunk it into the ground. And you wouldn't even I
mean you'd look out, you gud be five feet away
looking out over them, you wouldn't see them. Just really
cool habitat and ecology. So they've adapted to these ephemeral
lagoons that are in these basins of these mountain ranges,
surrounded by deserts. And the soil, of course, is no
doubt exceptionally salty, because you know that's what rain does.
It chemically weathers and then dissolves minerals off of them,
washes those minerals into the basin, and then evaporates, leaving
the minerals behind. But you know, the center of this lagoon,
this ephemeral lake bed, this dry lake bed, was open
and empty, and then it was surrounded on the margins
by these little islands, these soil mounds composed of spiny
shrubs and soil crusts. And you know, Cobralineus spinosa, another
Texas plant to the planet we get in Texas, was
one of the most dominant ones that and then nel
Tuma leve gatta, a species of miska formerly Prosopis leva gatta.
There was Condoliopsis up to Sifolius there formerly za Zyphis
you know, Buckthorne family ramnassy and then Condalia spatiolata as well.
And then you know on these little islands, you know,
each the size of you know, medium to large sized
kitchen table under these shrubs. You know, the roots would
hold the soil together and forming these mounds, and then
and then there would be uh, the soil crust. You know,
there were mosses there, dry mosses obviously because it was
the dry season, cyanobacteria and lichens and on these little mounds,
and you'd see, you know, all these cool cacti and
a kind of serious species. I forget what species it was.
There was Lafafra correzzii, Aerocarpus uh koshiubayanas, Cora panta uh
Mais tablensis, named after a town called Maise, and then
another town called Les Tablas that was the same one
we saw at the other salty soil area growing with
Turbiniccarpas LoVa varieties that I told you about maybe forty
minutes ago. But I I mean it's one of those
places where you know, You don't just go and to
take photos you leave. You got to you gotta like
sit there, take it all in and think about it
and really grasp that you're looking at a cactus that
grows submerged for two or three days in a few
inches of what is probably exceptionally briny water, and then
you know, it just hangs out the rest of the year,
the top of its stem just completely flush with the
soil surface. And again it's this silty, calcareous material because
this is a limestone substrate. It's fucking wild. It's such
a cool habitat and ecology and I mean literally you
walk out into this basin, oh yeah, and as the
water dries, it leaves behind. I don't know if this
is all soil crust that's a verifying drug. Holy shit,
I don't know if it's all this. You know, it's
this black soil crust. And and they got a beautiful
look at it. They got a beautiful Guadalupe painted onto
the side of the mountain. So you never forget that
you're in a Catholic area. Oh yeah, they really beat
you over there with a religion here, don't they. That's
what you know. Dominance dominator societies do you know, But
but yeah, so it's it's it's just such a fucking
cool habit. It's such a cool ecology. And to think
that these, I mean, you out onto this, you know,
you almost feel bad stepping on some of the soil crust,
but then you realize, well, during the wet season, it's
all gonna get inundated again and probably moved around. It
looks like it might be some sort of dried organic
material that was maybe in the water and then pools up,
or it could just be yeah, the soil crust that
stays alive for a while during the time it takes
for this still decalcarious mud to completely dry out. And
then you know, in these in all of that or
you know, three or four of these cactus species, the
Cora phanta my east tub lenses. You know, these species
grow both on the islands of spiny shrubs, the kitchen
table sized islands of spiny shrubs and out in the
open in the middle of the ephemeral of goon. But
the Cora pantha my east toup lenses actually pops up
a little bit more. Aerocarpus coach you byanus of course,
you know in places it looks like a spider web,
like like a spider web tattoo. Is it better way?
You know, some people get spider web tattoos. Kind dumb whatever,
no offense if you if you happen to have one,
of course, not making fun of you, but it's definitely
better than a pirate ship or a coyfish. Fuck if
you have one of those doing most not making fun
of you. Well maybe a little bit, just throwing some
champs here. But it looks like one of those, you know,
flash spider web tattoos, just laying in the in the mud.
It doesn't get that tall at all. The same with
the lofafra, and the loafafa kind of retracts a little
bit as it loses to some loses some of its volume,
you know, as it spends up its energy and water
reserves during the dry season. But the cora phant that
stays pretty uh, you know, like an inch above the
soil surface at most. But again, these things, I mean,
you really have to be out there, you know, scouting form,
looking over the soil trying to you know, see if
they're there, because you can be right on top of
them and and not notice. I also saw an Ibervilia species,
which I only noticed, you know, a vining member of
the Kukurba tas uh ibervilla species, which I only noticed
because of the red red fruits. And it's it was
either I think Ibervillia tenuis secta and Ibervilia lindheimer ii
are the only ones that grow in the state of
San Luis Poto s because that's what this was. And
so you know, you can't really tell them the part
unless you have leaves. And the leaves were gone. It
was just like the dried the dried stems of the vines.
And then scary, Yeah, it's another scary truck. Holy shit. Yeah,
why not move a back oh down a fucking two
lane road with that? Well, there's no shoulder there. You
couldn't pull over if you wanted to, you would just
take a tumble. Seen so many stevious species. Man, there's
a Stevius species here too. But again, so a few
parking lots. So if you billboards, so if you cull
the sacks and mc mansions, and it's a much different
way of life, you know, a much different infrastructure too.
You know, not everybody needs to have a car and
live in a fucking suburb. There's no, there's not really
suburbs in Mexico, are there not? Really? It's not like
in America. I mean, do you just ask me what
a suburb is? Yeah? No, big cities have suburbs kind of,
but they're more like outskirts. They're not like Culda sec. Shit. Well,
if you just ask me what a suburb is, that's
a good sign. That means you probably don't. Yeah, you know,
Oh my god. Yeah. And I'm still washing off the
PTSD from the US. You know, I don't mean to
knock it all the time. It's just they're just what
are we doing up there? Really? What are we doing?
You know, people are fucking miserable and pissed off and
everyone's getting fucked and you know it's this is of course,
I'm just doing this. I'm just talking about this to
just you know, flush away the squares. It's like, you know,
get them to turn off the podcast, try the way.
Oh look at that ipomea. That's that that native blue
ipomea species tri color. Yeah, God, that is a gorgeous
color on it. What what selects for blue colors? And
a flower that's wild? Wow? So yeah, the ephemeral Lagoon
was probably one of my favorite spots, just because it's
so unique and mystifying and just such a bizarre It's
just such a fucking bizarre college. And all again dictated
by the wet dry season, the alternating wet and dry season,
which is yeah, nice, nice stratigraphic layers there. Well, this
is all this is metamorphous limestone a little bit. It
looks like, so, you know, the wet and these ephemeral
lagoons all dictated by the wet and dry season as
well as the latitude. The latitude dictates the wet and
dry season as well as the rain shadow of the
Sierra Madre, which squeezes out like a sponge. That all
that moisture laden air that moves west from the Gulf
of Mexico hits those mountains, dries out, and then causes
you know, all this cool cactus diversity and other xeric
xerophytic diversity, xerophyte diversity to have evolved on the west
side of the Sera Mandre. And so right now during
in the winter, the ITCZ has shifted that low pressure
zone that causes the rain to the southern hemisphere. So
it's raining and Mina's your eyes Brazil right now. So
you know, those dry forests that I love so much
down there are probably very verdant and green while it's
up here things are really starting to dry out. And uh,
you know that's why we got the seat of cool
rosette leaves on the pinguicula at ten thousand feet yesterday
and Sierra Eld doctor, Eld doctor, the doctor was. It
took my pain away. And so I'll tell you what,
it was a fucking doctor for me more ways than one.
So everything again, that wet dry season dictates everything here,
from the fucking pinguiculus at ten thousand feet that have
two different leaf types, one corresponding each season, to the
ephemeral lagoons that false Payoti and area of Carpus coach
you bianus growing. Anyway, I'm gonna end it there for
now because there's gonna be so much shit I'm gonna
have to do another episode anyway. So wow, yeah, look
at all the agritinas and stevieas what God, look at this?
This has been cooked. But what cooks these these vertical
cliffs to our left? A molten body? Was there a
molten body in nearby? Look at this there's all these
cool conifers up there too. Now we're at sixty seven
hundred feet. Anyway, I did, I do. Hope you got
some out of that. You know, the white and dry seasons,
the differences in elevation, the rain shadow, and so many
cool and wonderful plants, and much of it much safer
than a lot of the plants in the US. Into
much different land management than land uses. Not perfect, but
you know, there's very little sprawl. Maybe there will be
at some point. Anyway, we're gonna hope we don't drive
off the road there. Say goodbye, Gabrielle, goodbye. Anyway. That's
a good. Uh, it's a good. That's a wrap. Have Agrescia,
They go fuck you, some bake