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Speaker 1: Episode.

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Speaker 2: Amma, do I'm going down cry.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to the cry pace A bond. He doesn't podcast.

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I shouldn't be driving, but I am going A got

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three and a half hours to go on a night drive,

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a misty night drive to South Texas, coming from good

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old San Anton, coming from Sagein, from the nursery, coming

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from Limestone Tortoise Nursery, headed south back to the border

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lands of South South Texas, Deep South Texas. God damn.

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I just got back from the Philippines. It was a

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fucking I spent some time in some of the most

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incredible forests, the Old World forests around so many Old

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World lineages of aeroids. The last day hung hanging out

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with some fucking wonderful people too, Holy shit, Johnny Altamonte,

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Kathleen uh Rob, who told me a wonderful story about

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him with his boyfriend going to get jockstraps. It's maybe

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he didn't want me to share that. I enjoyed it though,

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you know, he was like a forty five year old queen.

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I love wonderful fucking man. But they're you know, they

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they they started that organization, Philippine Taxonomic Initiative. Jason monse

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Bang was fucking great too, excellent fucking bondists and just

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like the most fucking sweet, humble guy, like great fucking bondists,

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And and Jason really knew fucking everything. Man with no flowers,

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nothing like that guy has his plants down to a tee.

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That's kind of like, I'm not even there with the

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thorn scrub plants, you know, you know a lot of

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the thorn scrub plants you have to really use non

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flowering characteristics sometimes because they're not always flowering to tell

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what they are. You just have to be you just

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have to be extremely familiar with your flora, especially since

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a lot of thorn scrub plants, you know, just have

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the same leaf characteristics. Right. It's like then the tropics too,

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you can't always see flowers. So like thorn scrub plants,

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fascicled leaves, no petioles, The leaves are sessile, they're short,

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they're fucking narrow whatever follow feminists castilla. All these things

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look alike, like if a lot of the legumes look

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alike to the most soid legumes. But and so Jason

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is like that with tropicola, with tropical bonni. Like the

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plants we were seeing in these forests are just fucking incredible.

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And we were in the north for the first few

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days doing field surveys collecting. They have a really interesting

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method of collecting that they do too, just using dnatured alcohol,

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you know, whereas I just take a I'll take a

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fucking food dehydrator with me. I don't bring the trays,

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and then I'll just set the books that I collect

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specimens on vertically on top of the food dehydrator and

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let it blow, you know, one hundred and five degree

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no hotter than one hundred and five degree fahrenheit air

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through them. And I'll put like, I'll put like, you know,

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Q tips in between the pages sometimes so the air

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can get through. I just use these little sketchbooks, like

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cheap sketch books you get at the dollar store. Nope, notebook, notebook,

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notepads whatever. But yeah, man, it was a We had

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a fucking great time. And then I spent the last

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four days in Manila, and then on the last day PTI,

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Philippine Taxonomic Initiative, had scheduled this little like twenty person

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hike with this other dude, John Ray, who came out

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who's an expert in bamboo and ferns. Everybody was just

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so fucking kind and humble and sweet, and you know,

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was I was trying to convince everyone down there to

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use a Naturalists because nobody down there uses in neat

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and it's such a great you know, when people are

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averse to it. I like some of the like John

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Ray was a little averse to it. He's like, yeah,

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I don't know, and I was like, no, man, trust me,

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it's not It's not like a social media app, you know.

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It's more it's a really great learning tool. It's I

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use it for myself, like I'm you know, I don't

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post shit so other people can see it. I mean,

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I mean I do kind of because I want people

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to learn about it and get stoked on things. But

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it's not like a you know, it's not like a

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trying to garner likes app. I was trying to explain

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it to him, you know, and I'm like, when you

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contribute to the body of knowledge on I neet And

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there's not a lot of people using it in the Philippines,

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so it's not that good yet, because it's only as

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good as however many people are using it and contributing

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to it, you know, so I was trying to explain

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to them the value in it. But they've got co's

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Digital Flora, which is the website they used on there,

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and I guess like a Facebook. There's some Philippine Facebook group.

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But I was like, man but yeah, but Facebook, you know,

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the admins can shut down the page or it's it.

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And it's Facebook too, so you've got to you know,

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get sucked every once in a while with shitty ads

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like just you know, trying to convince people to use

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in at spreading the good word. But but yeah, wonderful people.

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It was cool to be in Manila too. I don't

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know how I picked a hotel. I just because we

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were coming back from doing field work and I still

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had four and a's. I wanted to hit the museums.

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I like going to the fucking art museums too. We

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went to the Pinto Museum, which is kind of out there.

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Pinto Museum is like fucking dope art, really good art,

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like dark shit that I kind of like, like dark

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social commentary art. And then plants, like native plants too.

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It's like a botanic garden and an art gallery, but

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it's all like open air, like the buildings are not

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air conditioned. They're just you know, there's door there's portals

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with no doors on them, basically, and like these old warehouses.

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It's a really cool setup. It's like the whole gallery

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is in a big warehouse. I posted some rant using

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some of the paintings I saw there as backdrops in

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my stories, and all these people were hitting me up, saying, man,

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who did this art? This is incredible? And unfortunately there

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was no tag near the art, so I don't know

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who did it, but you could probably look it up

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online do like a Google image search. But the art

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was really really good, and it was all different kinds

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of art. And then yeah, they have a bunch of

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native plants with labels on them that I guess Jason

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actually helped them id out there. So a lot of

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the stuff they've got like Sarawia out there, which is

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Kiwi family acting adyac, which I thought was just the

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New World genus. I guess it's I guess it's not.

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I guess it's I guess there's a couple uh milesian

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as the FIDO geographical region comprising Orneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, the

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Philippines and all these south all those Southeast Asian islands

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are known Malaysia, not a country, but a region. I

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guess there's a Sarawia there too. I got to see

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Sema Carpus lounge of Folius, which is such a fucking

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weird member of anacardiac. It's like this sixty foot tall monoculus.

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Maybe it branches at the top. It's like a I

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saw Sema Carpus lounge of Folius, which is an anacard

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and I think it might have you rush you all

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in it. I don't know, maybe not. I touched it.

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I didn't break out in a rash, but I touched

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a you know, a meter long leaf that fell from

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the canopy way up. It's so crazy to be in

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these forests. It was hot as balls in Manila too,

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Like when we were in the mountains the first few days,

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the first the beginning of this trip, it was relatively cool.

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Like you'd wake up in the morning, it'd be hot

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during the day, you'd be sweating like a pig. And

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then you wake up in a morning and it's chili

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and the cicada. I'll place some of the cicadas and

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bird sounds for you later. I made a bunch of recordings.

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The forests are just so alive, like loud. The cicadas

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sound like burglar alarms. There's all kinds of cool birds.

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I guess I can you put can you put like

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recordings on the Merlin bird? I d app you know

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that app that I these birds by the bird song?

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I think he can. I don't think it's got to

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be live. We didn't have any service, but so I

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just recorded a bunch. But the birds were incredible. But yeah,

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the last day I got to see strong glow don

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the jade vine fabasi. You know, we saw one. If

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it produces these pendent inflorescences. This is some showy shit,

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but it's mainly just showy. It's not you know, it's

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not showy because it's a cultivar or it's a product

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of you know, some dip shit breeding things in a

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greenhouse for color or what you know. The things always

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make fun of, right, don't don't take it too personally.

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If that's your jam, I'm just I gotta make fun it.

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I'm into fucking ecology. That stuff kind of discourages people

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from being into ecology sometimes, you know, the showy cultivar stuff,

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in my opinion, but again, it's not a religious just

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my opinion, So don't don't take that to the bank

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get all offended. So some people get really offended when

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I shit on that. But anyway, but it's a really

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really it's like a three foot long pendant. So it

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drapes down inflorescence comprised the like eighty iridescent blue like

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sky blue flowers, and they're just p flowers, but they're

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a very bizarre more morphology on them. So it's like

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a flower like like a textius blue bonnet, like a

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loopiness species. It's the same flower structure, banner, pedal, wing pedals,

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keel pedal Diadelphus stamens nine fused one free you know,

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enclosed in the keel. But it's bat pollinated and so

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that's why it's got this really bright, beautiful blue color

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to it. I think you can see them. And so

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they got them in some greenhouses. I know they had

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them at the what was it it was at the

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DC Botanic Garden, the National Botanic Garden. They had stronglod

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on and they're jade vine it's called And it's on

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the fucking currency too, like if you if you use

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a five philippine Peso bit. They got stronglod On on there.

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They got native plants on there, right, they're proud of

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their flora. They've got the Delinia delinea philippine ensus on

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them too. They got like four or five different species.

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New Zealand does that too with their flora, right. I

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wish the United States did that. That's what we need

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to do. You bring plants into the culture. You know,

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you you be proud of them. But anyway, yeah, so

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they got you know, stronglod On is a well loved

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Philippine plant, and we saw one flowering like ninety feet

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above the forest floor. Way the fuck up there with

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all these cool ferns and aeroids. Dry in area fern

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which is like a kind of like a horn, not really,

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it just forms one of those you know, the basal,

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the base of the it's an epiphytic fern with like

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three foot long fronds, and then the base of the

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leaves get those accumulations of you know, old leaves, like

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dry bracts. So it does like a similar thing that

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the the platys syrium the staghorn does. But these these

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monstrous trees, just huge trees, and then all kinds of

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crazy shit up in the canopy. They're all different kinds

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of leanas you know, which are just like really robust

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woody vines, like you know, the archetype jungle vine. There

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was a member of lamey Ace that was a leana.

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There's all kinds of crazy shit. And so we saw

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this stronglow down way up there, ninety feet above the ground,

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which was just fucking dope. And then we got lucky

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and there was one right at eye level, and so

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I could dissect the fly. And it's cool because they

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co evolved with bats, and so bats selected for the plant,

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and the plants kind of selected for pollination by bet

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and and so they've got this bright color so they

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can be seen by the bats up into canopy. And

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then the wing pedals, when the bat pushes its face

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into the wing pedals, it makes the keel pedal bend.

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If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's fine,

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don't trip. Just look it up. Look up you know

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p flower, Look up banner wings and keel and you'll

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get a diagram. And so when the bat presses its

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face in between the wing petals, it forces the keel

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pedal up like to bend up the keel pedals kind

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of shaped like a hook in this case, like it's

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like in a loop in the keel pedal is just

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a straight up keel. It kind of projects outward from

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the flower a little bit. It's two fused petals. It

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literally looks like a keel of a boat, but on

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stronglodon it's long and hook shaped. And there's a couple

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bird pollinated members of the Faboiti subfamily, the pea family,

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the p subfamily of the pea family, because Fabodi is

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the subfamily that has this flower morphology to banter wings

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and keel there's a couple bird pollinated ones, like there's

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a famous one in New Zealand that's like extinct in

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the wild but common in cultivation. They grow in California sometimes,

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big red flower. But it's got the same thing. It's

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got like this hooked, this hooked the keel pedal. Like

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if you look at like a coral being erethrina, the

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keel pedal is the same structure. It's like the same

234
00:14:34,759 --> 00:14:37,759
like long, you know, same thing bird pollinated, but this

235
00:14:37,799 --> 00:14:40,159
case it's bat pollinated. So instead of the flower being red,

236
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:42,639
it's like this bright blue so it can pick up

237
00:14:42,639 --> 00:14:44,759
the moonlight way up in the canopy, and the bat

238
00:14:44,799 --> 00:14:47,679
pushes its face into the wing pedals. It causes the

239
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,600
keel pedal the bend. When the keel pedal bends, the

240
00:14:52,679 --> 00:14:56,000
stamens that are enclosed in the keel pedal push out

241
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:58,600
of the tip of the keel pedal and kind of

242
00:14:58,679 --> 00:15:01,679
squirt pollen out onto the back of the bat's head.

243
00:15:01,679 --> 00:15:05,000
And then the style is with those stamens too, like

244
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,799
they're all kind of wrapped together. They're all the filaments

245
00:15:07,799 --> 00:15:11,039
of the stamens, and then the the uh, the style

246
00:15:11,159 --> 00:15:14,159
and so the style. You know, of course, if the

247
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:16,120
bat already has pollen on the back of its head,

248
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:18,919
it'll end up dusting some pollen onto that style when

249
00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:22,039
it goes to feed on the nectar inside this flower.

250
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:23,960
I would have loved to sample the nectar. I didn't

251
00:15:24,759 --> 00:15:26,759
just see what it tastes like or what it smells like.

252
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,960
There wasn't really a smell to strangle it done. Maybe

253
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:32,799
there's a faint one at night. A lot of bat

254
00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:36,879
pollinated flowers and moth pollinati flowers. You know, evening pollinated

255
00:15:36,919 --> 00:15:42,200
flowers will not emit scent until the evening. But uh,

256
00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:44,840
because you know that scent this probably I imagine it's costly.

257
00:15:45,679 --> 00:15:48,360
You know those osmaphorest that have to produce those scent

258
00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:52,960
compounds that it's not cheap, right, it requires calories to

259
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,039
do that. Anyway, It's a fucking dope plant. It's just

260
00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:59,159
it's so fucking cool looking and beautiful and then it's

261
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:01,360
you know, the leaves are just like these kind of leathery,

262
00:16:03,159 --> 00:16:08,360
plastic e laborous, smooth trifolia leaves just like a bean,

263
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:11,399
just like a phaseolus or anything else. But these things

264
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,879
go ninety feet up the canopy. And we were at

265
00:16:14,879 --> 00:16:17,360
this it was like Maga ling forest park. I forget

266
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:20,759
the name of it. I don't I'm not proficient that

267
00:16:20,919 --> 00:16:26,759
pronouncing to galog, Tagalog to galog, which is the language.

268
00:16:26,759 --> 00:16:31,000
It's funny, man, because like Johnny and my buddy Johnny

269
00:16:30,759 --> 00:16:34,279
and you know, they they've got they're Filipino, but they

270
00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:36,360
got like American accents, but it sounds kind of like

271
00:16:36,399 --> 00:16:39,159
a Staten Island accent. It's kind of funny, like it

272
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,960
reminds me of like friends that grew up in like

273
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:46,799
New York, you know, the way like I think maybe

274
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:50,200
like the thh has become t I do the same thing,

275
00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:54,039
you know, D and THH and all them become like

276
00:16:54,159 --> 00:16:56,559
just straight up tease. Anyway, it's just kind of cool,

277
00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:03,279
kind of cool to notice. But but yeah, so anyway,

278
00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:08,119
this uh, this Moggeling Forest Park, it's it's like an

279
00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:12,440
hour south of Manila, and uh you know, we we

280
00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:15,640
it's like a fucking nine kilometer high to the top,

281
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,319
well at least to like where the reflegias start appearing.

282
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:24,440
And Rhuflesia is like a bucket list genus for a

283
00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:27,240
lot of plant people because it's just such a notable

284
00:17:27,279 --> 00:17:32,079
parasite next to a Morphophallus titanum. It's a species of Rhflegia,

285
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:34,839
one of the thirty or forty in the genus that

286
00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:37,839
produce the largest flower in the world, which I think

287
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:40,799
I forget what Rufleesia species it is. It's in Borneo,

288
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,960
but it produces like a you know, a meter wide flower.

289
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:49,480
And they're endo parasites, right like our native Texas and

290
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:55,519
native California and Arizona and Pilos Styles, which is unrelated.

291
00:17:55,519 --> 00:18:00,440
I think Pilostes Styles was actually placed in Rafleziacea one point,

292
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:03,640
though now it's an apodanth These, which I think is

293
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:11,519
in the cucumber order Kukerbathales and Pilostyles parasitizes legumes, whereas

294
00:18:11,559 --> 00:18:18,160
Reflegia parasitizes a genus called Tetrastigma, which is a fining leana,

295
00:18:18,319 --> 00:18:22,559
like a big, thick woody leana from the grape family

296
00:18:23,119 --> 00:18:28,640
that's common in Southeast Asia. But anyway, Reflesia's got like

297
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:30,480
three yet, like I said, thirty or forty species, and

298
00:18:30,519 --> 00:18:34,799
it's an endo parasite, no leaves, no stems. It just

299
00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:37,960
spends its whole life living inside the host plant, but

300
00:18:38,039 --> 00:18:41,680
not really seeming to harm it. It's a weird relationship.

301
00:18:43,079 --> 00:18:45,559
I don't know, you know, I think it's probably more

302
00:18:45,599 --> 00:18:49,519
complicated than just parasitism. There might be some sort of

303
00:18:49,559 --> 00:18:51,920
benefit to the plant where it was it. I think

304
00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:54,759
I was reading some paper just came out explaining how

305
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:59,319
some of the micoheterotrophs actually might provide a benefit to

306
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:02,039
the fungus that they parasitize. And now, Ruflegia is not

307
00:19:02,079 --> 00:19:04,519
a micoheterrotroph I'm not trying to fuck you up. Ruflesia

308
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:09,759
is a parasitic plant that parasitizes plants, whereas micoheterotrophs are

309
00:19:09,839 --> 00:19:15,960
parasitic plants that parasitize micro rhizol fungus. Okay, like Sarcodi's sanguinia.

310
00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:20,680
The quote snow plant, which is a bright red micoheterotrophic

311
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:23,720
plant in the blueberry family that grows in the Sierra

312
00:19:23,759 --> 00:19:27,480
Nevada of California. But I think a paper just came out,

313
00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:32,240
if you'll if you'll give me this digression really quick.

314
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:37,200
A paper just came out that kind of hinted at

315
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,599
the theory that maybe Sarcod's sanguinea the snow plant provides

316
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:46,519
a benefit to the micohet the micro rhizol fungus, and

317
00:19:46,559 --> 00:19:50,599
the micro hyzel fungus that snowplant is parasitizing is locked up,

318
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:53,519
locked up, you know, in a symbiosis with the surrounding

319
00:19:53,519 --> 00:19:59,920
coniferous trees. But this micoheterotroph might be giving the micro

320
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,000
a rhizal fungus, you know, like a basically like a reservoir,

321
00:20:04,279 --> 00:20:09,000
like a spot to lurk and and basically occupy should

322
00:20:09,039 --> 00:20:12,279
it ever lose I guess, you know, should it ever

323
00:20:12,319 --> 00:20:15,559
lose ground in the in the forest. So it provides

324
00:20:15,599 --> 00:20:18,759
it kind of like a safehouse in the event of

325
00:20:19,039 --> 00:20:24,680
any sort of extreme environmental situation. You know, like a

326
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,160
massive tree die off or something like that. So if

327
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:33,400
the micro rhyzol funguses symbiance die, then maybe it can

328
00:20:33,519 --> 00:20:37,359
still stay alive inside. I don't know. I don't know.

329
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:39,559
I think I'm fucking this up probably, But you should

330
00:20:39,599 --> 00:20:41,039
check out the paper if you can. I think I

331
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:43,720
just read it in Science direct or something the last week.

332
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:45,759
But it kind of hints at the fact that it's

333
00:20:45,799 --> 00:20:49,160
not a strictly parasitic relationship. There actually is a benefit

334
00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:55,839
going back to the fungus with the micoheterotrophs some of them,

335
00:20:55,839 --> 00:21:00,880
and there's micohedrotrophic orchids too. We saw what was we

336
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,359
saw micahedrotrophic orchids. Well, you can always tell them michael heterotrophs,

337
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,960
at least the orchids because or you know, a lot

338
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:12,559
of members of blueberry family do this, and Bermanniac another

339
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,440
monocop family that does this as well. I think Bermanniace's

340
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:21,160
and diascory Aley's the Diascoria order. But in any case,

341
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,640
you can always tell because there's no chlorophyll. I mean,

342
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,359
you can just tell the plants to paris like, because

343
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:29,119
there's no chlorophyll, there's no green tends to be white

344
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,039
doesn't really have much in the way of leaves, maybe

345
00:21:33,079 --> 00:21:37,680
just vestigial leaves regardless. But anyway, so but it was great.

346
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,680
It was so fucking cool to see reflegia because you

347
00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:43,240
see the pictures online and it's this big, gross looking

348
00:21:43,279 --> 00:21:46,440
red flower. The flowers smell like dog shit and rotting

349
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,559
meat because they're pollinated by flies and hold, there were

350
00:21:48,599 --> 00:21:51,160
a lot of there were a lot of flies going.

351
00:21:51,319 --> 00:21:53,680
You know, my navigation lady, I put her it's a

352
00:21:53,759 --> 00:21:57,000
Nigerian voice. I just picked that because I couldn't stand

353
00:21:57,039 --> 00:22:01,000
the the Google lady's voice. You know, she was too

354
00:22:01,039 --> 00:22:05,160
positive and it's too happy. It sounded like customer service,

355
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:08,519
like the White lady boys. So they had the Nigerian option.

356
00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:15,079
They picked Nigerian. Fuck it, you know. But anyway, so

357
00:22:15,079 --> 00:22:18,480
so you see the flowers are a flegia, and yeah,

358
00:22:18,519 --> 00:22:20,799
they look cool and they're wild and they're weird looking,

359
00:22:20,839 --> 00:22:23,680
but you don't really understand the ecology of it, or

360
00:22:23,759 --> 00:22:26,279
the setup or the fact. The thing that really blew

361
00:22:26,319 --> 00:22:29,799
my mind, I think was that seeing the the flower

362
00:22:29,839 --> 00:22:33,960
buds as they emerged. They emerged like a year before

363
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,319
the plant blooms on the vine, on the host, on

364
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,279
tetrastigma and they kind of look like a little woody

365
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:43,640
gull and you know, like the size of a marble.

366
00:22:44,039 --> 00:22:46,160
And then they eventually, over the course of the years

367
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:50,759
swell to like the size of a baseball until they

368
00:22:50,799 --> 00:22:53,119
bloom or however big the flower gets. It depends on

369
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:56,160
the species. Again, there's a shit ton of species. There's

370
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,400
like nineteen species in the Philippines. I saw a poster.

371
00:23:00,079 --> 00:23:05,640
If you google Reflesia Philippines poster, you'll get images of it.

372
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:07,799
But I can't find any place to download. If anybody

373
00:23:07,799 --> 00:23:09,599
out there can find a place to download that poster,

374
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,039
let me know. First time I saw it was in

375
00:23:12,079 --> 00:23:15,640
the ut Austin or Barium. They got one there. It's

376
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:19,200
a beautiful poster. It's got all the Reflecia species that

377
00:23:19,319 --> 00:23:23,319
exist in the Philippines. But I guess there's one in

378
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:27,119
Thailand too. One in Thailand, but most are on the islands.

379
00:23:29,319 --> 00:23:31,720
But you know, again, to see this thing and then

380
00:23:31,759 --> 00:23:36,119
to see the host and to kind of get the

381
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,759
just I mean, it's a whole other thing to actually

382
00:23:38,799 --> 00:23:42,079
see the thing in person, where you can think about

383
00:23:42,079 --> 00:23:46,720
what you're looking at, ask questions, take a million photos. God,

384
00:23:46,759 --> 00:23:49,680
it was so fucking cool. And the flower morphology is

385
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,240
really weird on these things on reflegia. So you got

386
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,799
five pedals and then you've got this disc in the

387
00:23:55,880 --> 00:24:00,079
center that looks kind of like a what is the

388
00:24:00,079 --> 00:24:04,839
genus of water lily? Is it? I can't I can't

389
00:24:04,839 --> 00:24:08,839
remember the name the lumbo or for anyway, I don't know,

390
00:24:08,839 --> 00:24:11,039
but it looks like this weird disc. It's like a

391
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,880
it's like a bizarre disc on the inside of this flower.

392
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:18,000
And then under that are the androe seum the male

393
00:24:18,079 --> 00:24:21,160
part or the gino the female part of the flower.

394
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,000
But you can't really tell what sex the flower is

395
00:24:24,079 --> 00:24:27,720
until unless you like look under that disc, or if

396
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:30,839
the flower is a little post and then you can,

397
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:35,279
you know, you can the disc withers and you can

398
00:24:35,319 --> 00:24:39,000
see under it. Oh God, I can't wait to go

399
00:24:39,079 --> 00:24:42,480
to sleep. Anyway, Yeah, it's the lumbo, you know, the

400
00:24:42,519 --> 00:24:46,240
water lotus the disc and water lotus kind of looks

401
00:24:46,279 --> 00:24:49,160
like the disc in the center of the Ruflesia flower.

402
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:54,079
And so I was looking at Ruflesia lagasque and and

403
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,400
it's you know, it's only gets about the size of

404
00:24:56,440 --> 00:25:00,119
a dinner plate, maybe a hubcap, and you know, the

405
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,880
buds though, like the buds before. We saw a couple

406
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,240
of buds that were gonna be going off in the

407
00:25:05,279 --> 00:25:06,920
next week or two, and they were literally like the

408
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,839
size of a baseball, maybe a grape crew, just coming

409
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,559
off like two feet up off the ground. Off this

410
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,720
tetrastigma and tetrastigma, I mean when you look at it,

411
00:25:15,759 --> 00:25:18,400
I didn't see any flowers on it, unfortunately, because I

412
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,240
would have loved to get, you know, photos of the

413
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,839
inflorescences and flowers. I took so many photos, but my

414
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,599
camera I switched cameras the last year, and this one's

415
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,000
heavy as fuck. It takes nice photos, but it's like

416
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:37,160
really cumbersome. But uh, you know, but tetras stigma, you

417
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:38,519
can tell it. I mean, you can kind of tell

418
00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:41,440
it's a grape just you can see in the petioles.

419
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,160
You know, it looks like Parthenocissus and Scissus and some

420
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:49,599
of the you know, those semi succulent viining members of

421
00:25:49,599 --> 00:25:51,680
the grape family. I mean, and then of course also

422
00:25:51,839 --> 00:25:56,359
Vitus to the genus fighters. But but yeah, man, it's

423
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,160
a I guess it's a big genus. I don't know,

424
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,680
I don't I met so many genera that I've never

425
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:06,279
been exposed to before, and that I mean that for

426
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,480
me is the most fun. Like that's when like you're

427
00:26:08,519 --> 00:26:12,039
actively learning, you know, because that's how I learned now,

428
00:26:12,079 --> 00:26:14,279
I mean I it used to be I would, you know,

429
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:17,119
go take Plant Systematics like these is ten years ago.

430
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,759
I take the Plant Systematics textbook with me to the

431
00:26:19,799 --> 00:26:23,119
coffee shop, leave the fucking phone at home and just go,

432
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,359
you know, drink my morning coffee, get wired, and you know,

433
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,960
pick up the book anywhere and read. And then whenever

434
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:31,880
I encountered words I didn't know, just look them up

435
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,519
in the back or you know, look up what the

436
00:26:34,599 --> 00:26:38,079
idea behind the word is, what the meaning is, so

437
00:26:38,079 --> 00:26:41,599
you're actually understanding it, not just memorizing it. But now,

438
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,720
I mean, when you're when you're actively learning new plants,

439
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,319
it's really just about going out there and taking photos

440
00:26:48,319 --> 00:26:52,960
of them because you know, at photo preserves so much information.

441
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,960
I mean, it's just data. It's just data collection. You

442
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,319
can tell so much by uh got I gotta turn

443
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:04,200
this time. It does not ridiculous. Yeah country looted my

444
00:27:04,319 --> 00:27:09,319
country for diamonds. That's what she should be saying, right.

445
00:27:10,559 --> 00:27:13,200
Uh So anyway, so I'll you know, I'll take like

446
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,599
and then that's why iinad is so important to me,

447
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:19,079
because that's that's literally my log book for you know,

448
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:23,400
all the different species I learn, and I'll reference them

449
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:29,519
for years to come. The photos that I take, you know,

450
00:27:29,599 --> 00:27:32,240
for presentations, shit like that, what date did I see

451
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:33,920
this on? And then I can go into my cloud

452
00:27:34,039 --> 00:27:37,759
photos and get you know, actual high resolution photos of

453
00:27:37,799 --> 00:27:41,759
it of the things I've seen. So it's basically just

454
00:27:41,839 --> 00:27:45,799
data collection. But god damn, yeah, there were all these

455
00:27:45,799 --> 00:27:51,079
cool climbing aeroids too, like uh, Syndapsis, syndapsis picked. This

456
00:27:51,279 --> 00:27:55,480
was a weird one with the modeled leaves raphid dopa.

457
00:27:57,559 --> 00:28:05,880
Lots of cool palms orenga, these massive rainforest palms. And

458
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:07,519
it was nice to be there in the dry season too,

459
00:28:07,519 --> 00:28:09,839
because I guess it gets a lot of rain, like

460
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,119
two to three meters of rain a year. The typhoon

461
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,920
season sounds like a fucking mess great but just really

462
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,519
really intense storms and high rainfall. And so the dry

463
00:28:20,559 --> 00:28:25,720
season is like December to March, December to April really,

464
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:30,440
and then it starts pissing in May. But these men,

465
00:28:30,519 --> 00:28:32,839
these forests were just so fucking cool, I mean, and

466
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,920
then you look up in the canopies of these trees

467
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:42,839
and there's just so much stuff growing up there. Yeah,

468
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,839
it was tons of rubyac genera that I've never met before.

469
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,759
Because again there's this distinction between Old World and New World,

470
00:28:50,119 --> 00:28:53,319
Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere. You know, a lot of

471
00:28:53,359 --> 00:29:00,400
things that heavily radiated and speciated in the Eastern Hemisphere

472
00:29:00,519 --> 00:29:02,759
never made it to the Western Hemisphere and vice versa.

473
00:29:03,319 --> 00:29:06,480
And then of course when you know, some somebody takes

474
00:29:06,519 --> 00:29:10,279
those some granny takes a plant from the Western Hemisphere

475
00:29:10,319 --> 00:29:12,279
to the Eastern Hemisphere and plants in New yard. And

476
00:29:12,319 --> 00:29:13,960
then in his case there was a you know, it

477
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,599
becomes invasive. There was a ton of invasive aeroids. There

478
00:29:17,599 --> 00:29:21,960
were some invasive philodendrons that were fucking up these forests.

479
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:28,599
Mahogany was everywhere, right like the family Meliacees pantropical, but

480
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:34,599
the genus Swetinia, the mahogany genus is Central American, And

481
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:40,319
so I guess they did, you know, like foresters, well

482
00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:44,440
intentioned individuals in the Philippines planted these fucking mahoganies everywhere

483
00:29:44,519 --> 00:29:48,279
in the seventies, you know, as part of a reforestation effort,

484
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,599
and of course now they're just invasive as hell and

485
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,000
a pain in the ass and fucking up the ecology there.

486
00:29:54,079 --> 00:29:55,680
You know, it's the same thing that people did with

487
00:29:55,839 --> 00:30:01,319
eucalyptus in California a little bit earlier, like early twentieth century.

488
00:30:01,359 --> 00:30:04,119
It's the same thing that that China did with its

489
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,440
great green Wall project. We're gonna green in the desert.

490
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,119
You know what does that sound like?

491
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:09,279
Speaker 1: Right?

492
00:30:09,319 --> 00:30:11,119
Speaker 3: Because it's a thing that so many people are trying

493
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:16,880
to do. I think that guy Sean Overton is now

494
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,680
doing native plants. He had a YouTube channel he was

495
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:21,240
doing a green in the Desert thing. But I think

496
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,240
he came around. He's a nice guy. I've talked to

497
00:30:23,279 --> 00:30:26,000
him before, but I think he finally came around. You know,

498
00:30:26,039 --> 00:30:27,519
I was trying to tell him. I was like, man,

499
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,960
I wanted to go visit him at the Sierra Blanca

500
00:30:31,079 --> 00:30:35,319
out in West Texas and that is really dry out there,

501
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,480
not as hot as South Texas and it actually gets

502
00:30:38,519 --> 00:30:43,720
chilly there and lots of naked geology too, but certainly

503
00:30:43,799 --> 00:30:47,920
very dry. But I think he finally learned the lesson

504
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,599
and realized you got to use what came with the land.

505
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:52,119
Like at one point I think he was trying to

506
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:57,240
plant Russian olives or some garbage. It didn't work, but

507
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:58,960
either way, Yeah, it'd be cool, you know, it would

508
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,000
be cool. I'm curious now that he's been out there.

509
00:31:03,759 --> 00:31:05,440
This is sewn overton the dust ups.

510
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 4: Guy.

511
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:07,799
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen that YouTube channel people

512
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,680
every month someone was telling me you gotta go see him.

513
00:31:11,279 --> 00:31:13,440
You know, he's trying to do the screening the desert thing,

514
00:31:13,519 --> 00:31:16,279
and it's it's fucking up the ecology. You can't really

515
00:31:16,279 --> 00:31:18,400
fuck up the ecology there. You're just gonna waste your time.

516
00:31:18,799 --> 00:31:21,640
It's too dry for anything to really get established. But uh,

517
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:23,920
but it'd be cool to go there and now, you know,

518
00:31:24,039 --> 00:31:26,000
because he's been there for like four years, four or

519
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,720
five years so far, and just see where he's at,

520
00:31:29,759 --> 00:31:31,319
you know, and just be like, so, did you did

521
00:31:31,319 --> 00:31:34,000
you figure it out? You know, did you realize like

522
00:31:34,599 --> 00:31:36,799
in such an extreme climate you got to use the

523
00:31:36,839 --> 00:31:38,599
tools that came with the land. Because I bet he's

524
00:31:38,599 --> 00:31:41,039
into natives now, I think he is. I think lest

525
00:31:41,079 --> 00:31:42,359
I heard from him he was trying to grow a

526
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:47,640
bunch of natives. But that's a really, really dry area though. Man,

527
00:31:47,799 --> 00:31:51,079
that is like between El Paso and Marfa. Man, it

528
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:56,119
is in West Texas. Like that's a really harsh anyway

529
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,759
harsh area. But uh, but yeah, there's there's invasive mahogany

530
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:07,279
everywhere and invas of philodendron. And then there was this

531
00:32:07,559 --> 00:32:10,240
uh this was a ab Wolita plant. There was some

532
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,519
like showy member of acan't they see, you know, who's

533
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,559
one of the hous thesas with all the bracts and

534
00:32:16,599 --> 00:32:21,440
shit and the red flowers humming were pollinated flowers, but

535
00:32:21,599 --> 00:32:24,480
it was just taken over the roadsides in this understory

536
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:29,480
of this forest. You know, it's like really the again,

537
00:32:29,559 --> 00:32:32,359
it's this something I talk about in concrete body. It's

538
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,799
like these things evolve, is they're not just autonomous entities,

539
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,400
these plants, they're parts of these whole you know, living

540
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,400
assemblages of species that have been interacting with each other

541
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:47,200
for millions of years and forming these relationships with relatively

542
00:32:48,279 --> 00:32:53,880
you know, few newcomers, like you know, there were certainly newcomers,

543
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,559
there were dispersal events, there were new arrivals, but you know,

544
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,920
at a fraction of the pace that humans have have

545
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,759
have dispersed plants or brought new arrivals in the last

546
00:33:04,759 --> 00:33:08,839
few centuries, so you got to take the whole ecosystem

547
00:33:08,839 --> 00:33:11,160
into account. All the plants had relationships with each other

548
00:33:11,759 --> 00:33:16,240
and and insects and different uh fungi and soil bacteria

549
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:21,759
and birds and other animals in those habitats. So uh.

550
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:26,920
But yeah, so this these four there was fucking diasporos

551
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:31,400
there too, but they look slightly different. The diasporos has

552
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,000
to be an old genus. I would assume that's very old,

553
00:33:34,599 --> 00:33:38,079
because it's fucking everywhere, it's pantropical, and it's there was

554
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,480
a diasporos. Of course, we got you know, per Simmons

555
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:43,960
in Texas and in the East Coast and North America.

556
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,319
But there's diasporos in Japan. There's diasporos in South Africa.

557
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:54,200
There's uh, there was a really rare diasporos we encountered

558
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:05,000
in the northern mountains with Agathis in the Dipterocarpus. God,

559
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,920
there was so much cool shit. It's like, it's what

560
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:09,920
I love. I love coming back from these trips and

561
00:34:10,039 --> 00:34:15,280
just going through photos again and remembering, like recollecting everything.

562
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:23,639
Tons of cool bamboos, Giganta Kloa cloa meaning grass. Giganta

563
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:28,719
Kloa was a genus h and counted out there massive

564
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:33,400
hollow tubes, you know, to ninety feet tall. Old world

565
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,559
genus at bamboo. There was Dinah Kloa, which is again

566
00:34:36,599 --> 00:34:38,920
it's it's so funny to me. It looks like some

567
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,320
tweaker plumbing job, like you invited some tweaker over and

568
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:47,000
they were gonna build this like doctor Sussian style PVC

569
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:50,599
pipe because it looks like green PVC pipe that dinahkloa does.

570
00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:56,039
It's a climbing bamboo. It's a climbing leana bamboo that

571
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:00,159
just it just looks like pipes like you you know,

572
00:35:01,039 --> 00:35:04,039
like loose pipes, like some tweaker was trying to build

573
00:35:04,039 --> 00:35:08,639
a waterworks system or something. So there was Dinakloa. There

574
00:35:08,679 --> 00:35:15,239
was a couple other bamboo genera. The Ficus diversity was

575
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,519
fucking nuts. I mean, there was there's fining Ficus small

576
00:35:19,639 --> 00:35:25,360
or baceus Ficus massive tree ficus. The strangler figs Ficus

577
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:30,719
minahasi was everywhere as well, which with its flagelliform peduncles

578
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:34,800
they look like they look like anal beads. I don't

579
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:37,880
know how to say it. You know, remember when anal

580
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:39,840
beats still the thing I don't know that was. Remember

581
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,960
it was like the butt of there was a butt

582
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,159
of some jokes back then, you know, like the little

583
00:35:45,159 --> 00:35:50,480
plastic beads you put in your where I come up

584
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,400
with this shiit, See, this is why, this is why

585
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,280
some people really don't like what I do. And I

586
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,960
get it. I totally get it. You know, you get

587
00:35:59,039 --> 00:36:03,800
some clenched you know, sniffing our own farts, you know,

588
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,440
some of the the genteels, some of the squares, you know,

589
00:36:07,559 --> 00:36:09,639
they don't they don't want to hear this stuff. They

590
00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:12,119
don't want to listen to a body podcast where he's

591
00:36:12,159 --> 00:36:14,000
talking about anal beats. I don't know what else they

592
00:36:14,039 --> 00:36:15,960
look like. I don't know how else to describe them.

593
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:22,280
The flagelliform peduncles with this Sinconia right, a very specific

594
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:26,559
kind of flower that applies to the figs and I

595
00:36:26,599 --> 00:36:29,840
think a few other members of Moraci, the mulberry family.

596
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,719
It's it's like a flower that has an obligate relationship

597
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:39,480
with wasps, so only wasps can pollinate a certain kind

598
00:36:39,519 --> 00:36:44,159
of wasp can pollinate these Ficus species. But they've got

599
00:36:44,159 --> 00:36:49,199
these really just the flowers, the inward facing what is

600
00:36:49,199 --> 00:36:54,320
technically a flower. They guy, they're so weird looking. It's

601
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:59,559
so cool, you know. They they they're these flagelliform peduncles,

602
00:36:59,559 --> 00:37:03,480
so like the whole inflorescence stalk you know, can be

603
00:37:03,599 --> 00:37:06,239
like a meter or two meters long and just comes

604
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:10,719
directly off the trunk and looks like some sort of weird,

605
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:16,559
you know, space creature tail coming off of this ficus tree.

606
00:37:16,559 --> 00:37:18,719
And this ficus tree can get upwards of like sixty

607
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:24,119
or ninety feet tall, twenty or thirty meters. And then

608
00:37:24,159 --> 00:37:27,719
the figs, you know, once the flowers pollinated, the figs

609
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,760
that later emerge are quite tasty. They're they're like edible

610
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,800
and kind of good. But I guess all the ficus

611
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,599
bleed that latex. See this is what I'm talking about. Like,

612
00:37:38,639 --> 00:37:41,719
it's it's so cool to meet this new genus. And

613
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,119
the more time you spend in the forests and the

614
00:37:45,199 --> 00:37:49,920
habitat here examining the different variations on a certain genus,

615
00:37:50,199 --> 00:37:53,679
you know, the more enriched I now feel, you know,

616
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,360
learning what this genus does and some of the traits

617
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,920
of it, the synapomorphies of it. Some of the rock

618
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,960
figs in Baja are really cool. See, Ficus is pantropical too.

619
00:38:06,039 --> 00:38:08,920
There's quite a few in Mexico. But I remember seeing

620
00:38:09,119 --> 00:38:11,480
what was the ficus I saw right on the Baja

621
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:17,159
California Baja California Sir border out there in the desert

622
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,480
with grown with giant cacti and Euphorbia xantai and a

623
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,440
bunch of other wild shit. I think it was. I

624
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,559
don't know if it was Ficus palmeri or I don't know,

625
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:35,800
but yeah, there was so much Ficus diversity, and there

626
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,599
was Ficus religiosa all over the old brick walls, you know,

627
00:38:40,679 --> 00:38:44,360
just growing as a pioneer species as well, a ruteral

628
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,920
plant really a plant that thrives of human disturbance in Manila,

629
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,599
and so, I mean that was kind of cool just

630
00:38:51,599 --> 00:38:54,239
being able to like bodanize the rock walls of the

631
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:59,320
old Spanish garrison fort in Manila, like where I found

632
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,840
the I got a hotel, you know, the last couple

633
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,480
of days I got a hotel and a way I

634
00:39:04,559 --> 00:39:07,280
found it was. I just looked for, like the dense

635
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,519
old city center with all the close the streets that

636
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:12,519
are close together, something that looked like it'd be fun

637
00:39:12,559 --> 00:39:15,599
to walk and found a cheap hotel there, and it

638
00:39:15,679 --> 00:39:17,760
ended up being a perfect hotel too. It was like

639
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:22,679
kind of a dump, like, it wasn't super fancy. There

640
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:24,920
were some stains on the walls, but it wasn't like

641
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,960
a bed bug hotel either, right, because I don't want

642
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:29,719
super fancy. I don't want that. I don't want to

643
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:31,400
be around the kinds of people that are going to

644
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,199
be at a super fancy hotel. I try to avoid

645
00:39:35,199 --> 00:39:37,519
those kinds of people. I also don't want them being

646
00:39:37,559 --> 00:39:40,599
around me, because then they can complain about me, you

647
00:39:40,639 --> 00:39:43,480
know whatever about me, or I don't want to just

648
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:47,079
it's better if we just don't interact. And also the

649
00:39:47,159 --> 00:39:49,920
price was right too, and also the spot's not gonna complain.

650
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,559
It's already like a semi dump. I would never say that.

651
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:55,960
The proprietors are such an establishment. I don't want to

652
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:57,880
offend them. But it's already kind of a semi dump,

653
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:00,559
so they're not gonna it's like a real road hotel.

654
00:40:00,559 --> 00:40:02,719
It's like the hotels used to put us up at

655
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,920
the railroad. All Right, they're not gonna complain about me.

656
00:40:06,119 --> 00:40:08,679
I'm not gonna have to complain about the other clientele.

657
00:40:09,199 --> 00:40:12,000
It works out great. The price is right, it's affordable.

658
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:15,360
I'm not expecting too much. They're not expecting too much

659
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:17,639
out of me, except for me to just not put

660
00:40:17,679 --> 00:40:19,639
holes in the wall. It works out good. It's great.

661
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,599
It's terrific. And I could hear the city down below.

662
00:40:23,599 --> 00:40:25,400
It was loud. I kind of like that. I like

663
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,719
that ambiance in the background. I like that human presence.

664
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:30,679
If I'm gonna be in a city, that's what I want.

665
00:40:31,079 --> 00:40:34,119
If I'm gonna be out in nature in the living world,

666
00:40:34,159 --> 00:40:36,519
I don't want that. But i'm gonna be in a city,

667
00:40:36,519 --> 00:40:38,400
that's what I want. So it was nice walk uple

668
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,679
streets close to the museum. Kind of a dump, but

669
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:47,280
not not really bad. You know. They had a little hotpot.

670
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,599
I could make my fucking green tea and coffee in

671
00:40:49,599 --> 00:40:53,159
the morning, and the ac blue cold. It was perfect.

672
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:59,199
It was perfect for me. Yeah, and so I could

673
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,760
just go, you know, fuck around during the day. Got

674
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,519
it was hot though, man, it was really really hot,

675
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,400
like really hot, like ninety five degrees fahrenheit whatever it

676
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,880
is in Celsius is at like thirty three celsius. But

677
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:16,079
it was really humid. So every day I go out.

678
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,079
I got heat stroke a couple times, or near heat stroke.

679
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,840
You know, like three or four pm rolls around, you've

680
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:24,960
been walking around all day. You just takes the It

681
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:25,880
takes the wind out of you.

682
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:26,119
Speaker 1: Man.

683
00:41:26,199 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 3: You feel like you feel he got roofed. You know,

684
00:41:30,039 --> 00:41:31,920
you gotta go lay down or take naps. Then I

685
00:41:32,039 --> 00:41:33,639
go back to the hotel, take a nap for a

686
00:41:33,639 --> 00:41:39,199
couple hours, read, dick around, and then head out again.

687
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,239
But that old Spanish garrison, I guess Manila got heavily

688
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,840
bombed in World War Two because it was occupied by

689
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,559
the Japanese. It got heavily bombed, and then it was

690
00:41:50,599 --> 00:41:53,119
occupied by the Americans for a while. But they were

691
00:41:53,199 --> 00:41:55,679
nicer than the Japanese, but they were still you know,

692
00:41:57,679 --> 00:42:00,960
exploiting it for their business interests. You know. American government

693
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,800
of course, like it's known to do, is getting its

694
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,159
dirty hands, making sure that the you know, the corporations

695
00:42:07,199 --> 00:42:12,519
could uh get established and you know exploited. And I

696
00:42:12,599 --> 00:42:15,480
think that's when they they ended up cutting. The American

697
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,760
companies ended up cutting a lot of the dipterocarp forests

698
00:42:20,199 --> 00:42:24,519
and those trees, those dipterocarps are fucking beautiful, man, They're incredible.

699
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:29,639
The National Museum has a really good bod neyed display

700
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,920
and they get into the ultra Mafic areas. They've got

701
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,840
some like Ultra They've got an Ultra Mafic diorama, which

702
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,760
is fucking cool, right, kind of like the similar I

703
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:47,760
like plant dioramas, right, Smithsonian Museum has one. American Museum

704
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,039
of National History in New York is really good with

705
00:42:50,079 --> 00:42:52,280
the plant dioramas. They've got animals in there too, but

706
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:59,159
they've got you know, regionally relevant models of native plants

707
00:42:59,199 --> 00:43:01,679
to go in the diemas where the animals are, which

708
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:03,840
is cool. And I think they've got labels for all

709
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,599
of them as well, so you're getting the whole habitat.

710
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,079
It is really cool. You've ever been to the the museum,

711
00:43:11,199 --> 00:43:13,559
the American Museum in National History in New York, It's

712
00:43:13,639 --> 00:43:16,400
totally worth it. I went a couple of years ago,

713
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,599
and I complained about the price. For non New Yorkers,

714
00:43:18,599 --> 00:43:20,440
it was like twenty five bucks. But I'm sure you

715
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,280
can find a way to sneak in there, or if

716
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:24,960
you have the money, pay it. But you know, the

717
00:43:25,039 --> 00:43:27,559
museums shouldn't cost twenty five bucks. I rant about this

718
00:43:27,599 --> 00:43:30,239
all the time. They should be supported with tax money.

719
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,960
They're vital institutions, they benefit the public, you know, and

720
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:35,559
then they get turned in, like all the ones in

721
00:43:35,639 --> 00:43:38,719
Chicago got turned into theme parks for suburban tourists. And

722
00:43:39,639 --> 00:43:41,519
you know, some admit this is all like product of

723
00:43:41,559 --> 00:43:44,280
the Reagan shit right. It's gonna be silfs stating we

724
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:49,880
don't need tax dollars going to support public education. Tax

725
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,920
dollars are supposed to go to support corporations and give welfare,

726
00:43:55,079 --> 00:44:01,199
welfare tax cuts to wealthy corporations. It's just another reason

727
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:03,400
to lower taxes for the rich. But am I still

728
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:06,400
going the right way? Where the fuck am I? God?

729
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:08,800
He's sketchy. You know, there's deer. You're gonna clip it deer.

730
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,159
You drive long enough in Texas, you're gonna clip it

731
00:44:11,199 --> 00:44:16,159
deer on these farm to market roads. Shouldn't have killed

732
00:44:16,159 --> 00:44:20,559
off all the jaguars, assholes, and the jaguars would help

733
00:44:20,639 --> 00:44:29,239
keep the deer down anyway. The fuck else that I

734
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:31,920
want to talk about? There's so much, I mean, there's

735
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,480
so much to talk about. I'm just going through my nashvillis.

736
00:44:35,599 --> 00:44:38,800
Oh yeah, there was a really dope uh member of

737
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:44,360
Malvasi in the uh, the lowland forests, like you know,

738
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:51,960
three hundred meters. It was terot Symbium with a P.

739
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,519
Is the genus. Turn off your brights, you schmuck the

740
00:44:55,559 --> 00:45:03,079
fuck fucking where's your etiquette? Ttero Symbium tinctorium. And I

741
00:45:03,119 --> 00:45:06,719
think it's actually drought deciduous. So it's you know, it's

742
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,920
like this ninety foot tall tree in the forest. You'll

743
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:14,639
see it on the slope and it's leafless, and then

744
00:45:14,679 --> 00:45:18,239
it flowers when it's leafless, and then the fruits look

745
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,679
like maple somorrows, but it's malves and the whole fruit

746
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:23,960
you know, that's like a little fruit with these two

747
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,440
wings on it. And so it helicopters down for dispersal,

748
00:45:29,079 --> 00:45:31,000
can get a little bit more distance than in what

749
00:45:31,119 --> 00:45:33,719
otherwise if it just fell straight using gravity, you know,

750
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:39,760
So helicopters down and it's a beautiful tree and really

751
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,639
big and and so it's produces just shit tons of

752
00:45:43,679 --> 00:45:51,159
these winged helicopter fruits ptro Cymbm cym b i u

753
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:56,000
M tinctorium, and yeah, a large component of the forest

754
00:45:56,079 --> 00:46:00,679
there and just massive and it's really it's cool to

755
00:46:00,679 --> 00:46:04,559
see them leafless, but with like you know, all in fruit,

756
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:06,559
so it just looks it's in the fruits kind of

757
00:46:06,559 --> 00:46:10,119
like whitish yellow wit yellowish, like this little looks like

758
00:46:10,119 --> 00:46:14,159
a thick marble or a thick bean with the little

759
00:46:14,159 --> 00:46:15,719
helicopter propellers on it.

760
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:16,079
Speaker 5: You know, the.

761
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 3: Samaras really cool looking tree. And it's relatively common there too.

762
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,480
I wonder how much of the Philippine flora is endemic

763
00:46:26,199 --> 00:46:28,719
quite a bit. But anyway, but yeah, but going back

764
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,679
to the National Museum, it's it's a fucking grave. If

765
00:46:31,679 --> 00:46:33,280
you get a chance to go there, check it out.

766
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,079
They've got some pretty they've got some weird taxidermy. The

767
00:46:36,119 --> 00:46:38,320
taxidermy didn't come out right. There might be you know,

768
00:46:39,119 --> 00:46:43,760
some cross eyed, misshapen mammals there, like the cloud rats.

769
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,039
Got a lot of cloud rats in the Philippines. They

770
00:46:48,079 --> 00:46:51,480
live in the cloud forests and the mossy forests. But

771
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,119
they've got you know, they've got a nice Kars diorama

772
00:46:55,239 --> 00:47:02,559
and ultramafic ultramafic diorama, and and you know some good

773
00:47:02,599 --> 00:47:05,199
examples in the Penthees, the god the ultra mafic stuff,

774
00:47:05,199 --> 00:47:09,519
those little dwarf elfin forests on those harsh soils. I

775
00:47:09,559 --> 00:47:14,039
think Dinnegatt Island is a is prob I think Dinnegot

776
00:47:14,159 --> 00:47:18,199
Island is all ultramafic. In the northwest part of the

777
00:47:18,199 --> 00:47:23,679
country there's some ultramafic, and then on Pottawan Island there's

778
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,800
a lot of ultramafic areas too, And then of course Pottawan,

779
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,079
you know, shoots like northeast to southwest. It's northeast to

780
00:47:31,119 --> 00:47:35,199
southwest oriented and then at the southwest end it connects

781
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,360
to or At, you know, basically leads to Saba. There's

782
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:44,880
a channel there, but it's close to Saba in northern Borneo,

783
00:47:45,199 --> 00:47:47,880
which is all ultramafic as well and known for a

784
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,760
shit ton of cool flora. And so you get these

785
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,239
pigmy god, I guess there's like dwarf agathists there, you know,

786
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,199
the monkey postal family. These I love these ancient conifers.

787
00:47:58,599 --> 00:48:01,400
I love these ancient conifer fans. It's like the Phyloclatus

788
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:09,679
we saw Philoclatus Hypophilus two. Just these bizarre, really old lineages.

789
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,199
They're just like old models of photosynthesis, like they shouldn't

790
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:17,119
be alive. Still, they shouldn't be extants still they are.

791
00:48:17,199 --> 00:48:19,199
Just the only reason they are is by some sort

792
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,639
of fluke. But in being able to see them, it

793
00:48:22,639 --> 00:48:24,639
gives you an idea, you know, and just looking at

794
00:48:24,639 --> 00:48:30,039
their morphology, the parallel veins, these uh verticilate, these these

795
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,599
whorls of branches, it gives you an idea of what

796
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,559
some of the flora may have looked like in the

797
00:48:36,599 --> 00:48:40,280
early Mesozoic. I like when the dinosaurs were getting going.

798
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,079
It's just they're they're such cool trees and they're just

799
00:48:43,119 --> 00:48:46,960
such a I mean, they're they're it's so simple compared

800
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,400
to angiosperms. I know, the taxonomists don't like it when

801
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:51,719
you say that, but they are. They're simple. They're like

802
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:56,519
a simple model of plant. But you know, in the

803
00:48:56,519 --> 00:48:59,519
case the age at this, they get fucking massive. You

804
00:48:59,519 --> 00:49:03,320
know the Cowry tree in New Zealand, which is one

805
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,320
of the largest I mean, those things get as big

806
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:10,039
as giant Sequoia is around. That's an Agathis, that's Agathis Australis.

807
00:49:10,119 --> 00:49:14,480
You get a agat this robusta. Remember seeing agat this

808
00:49:14,599 --> 00:49:17,559
I think it was Ovada in New Caledonia. You know,

809
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,800
it's been around for a while. It's a conifer, but

810
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,519
it looks like it's got broad leaves. Remember the first

811
00:49:23,519 --> 00:49:25,920
time I saw one was at San Francisco Botanic Garden

812
00:49:26,519 --> 00:49:29,400
in like two thousand and nine, and when someone told

813
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:31,880
me it was a conifer, I was like, what the fuck? Really,

814
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,880
this thing makes a cone because it just looks like

815
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,719
a quote, you know, broad leaved tropical tree. But then yeah,

816
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,480
when you look at the veins, they're parallel. You look

817
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,679
at the bark, it looks kind of like, you know,

818
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:48,000
Eri Carria bark, like monkey puzzle bark. It's all pimply

819
00:49:48,119 --> 00:49:52,239
and flakes off, and you know, the bark looks like

820
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,719
a fucking dinosaur. It's a it's a cool lynch. So

821
00:49:56,119 --> 00:49:59,559
you know, Philo clatus is Potocarpesi and then agath this

822
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:01,639
is air Carrie a c. I think those two families

823
00:50:01,679 --> 00:50:04,599
are sister. They're both fucking old though, and they've both

824
00:50:04,639 --> 00:50:08,079
got an extensive fossil record going back. I think in

825
00:50:08,159 --> 00:50:11,840
the case that Ricarria, the Ricarria family like two hundred

826
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:15,840
million years, two hundred and fifteen million years, so what

827
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:20,199
is that Triassic? And then you know they're just in

828
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:25,960
these these these deep forests, like these dark forests covered

829
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,320
in all kinds of aerids and cool orchids. I saw

830
00:50:30,679 --> 00:50:38,239
also a really cool lichen called Conagonium, which my buddy

831
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:41,559
Winslow id on inine. I had no idea what the

832
00:50:41,599 --> 00:50:43,559
fuck it was. I thought it was a basidio liking

833
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,159
you know, is in a basidio micey, a bisidio micey

834
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,039
being the fungus, and then of course there's an algae

835
00:50:50,079 --> 00:50:52,679
in there as well. You know, typical lichens set up

836
00:50:52,679 --> 00:51:01,840
an algae, cyanobacteria and a fungus, you know, menagetois. But

837
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,760
but but this turned out to be an asco my seat,

838
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:06,719
And I thought it was a basidio my seat because

839
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:11,320
it kind of looked like like the genus Cora, which

840
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,519
is a you know, a really common, at least in

841
00:51:13,559 --> 00:51:17,880
the neotropics in the Western hemisphere, really common bisidio like

842
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:20,519
in it looks looks like a polypor but it's a

843
00:51:20,559 --> 00:51:24,519
lichen and they're often blue. It's super species rich. I

844
00:51:24,559 --> 00:51:29,360
don't know who's doing work on the genus Cora. I

845
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:31,880
don't know. It's a fascinating genus though, and you see

846
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,119
them a lot in the neotropics. But and this kind

847
00:51:34,159 --> 00:51:36,800
of had that like polypoor look to it. But it

848
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:39,679
looked like it looked like it was almost like a

849
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:45,960
green polypore lufa, like it had that kind of spongy

850
00:51:46,039 --> 00:51:49,440
texture to it, but it was entirely green. And it

851
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,920
was a lichen in the genus Conagonium, which is an

852
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:56,119
asco my seat lichen, like most of the lichens are.

853
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,519
And that was that was with the file clayed us

854
00:52:00,599 --> 00:52:02,800
up at higher elevations. That was like fifty six hundred

855
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:07,760
feet So what is that sixteen hundred meters seventeen hundred

856
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,840
meters about? You know, you go up. That was in

857
00:52:10,559 --> 00:52:13,840
the first few days in the northern part. It was

858
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:17,920
like four hours north of Manila, in remnant forest that

859
00:52:18,559 --> 00:52:24,360
is slowly being cleared for agriculture. And god, it was

860
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,880
fucking cool. Though. I should have collected some and dried it.

861
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,440
I'm sure it's been collected. I'm sure it's in the urbarium.

862
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:33,920
I just want to go there. They're collecting stuff. PTI

863
00:52:34,119 --> 00:52:37,440
was collecting stuff for the orbarium. There's not a lot

864
00:52:37,519 --> 00:52:40,480
of I mean there's I'm sure there's a lot of

865
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:42,639
people doing things in academia, but there's not a lot

866
00:52:42,639 --> 00:52:46,320
of just community science, like just random motherfuckers like me

867
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,519
or anyone else who aren't affiliated with any institution doing

868
00:52:50,559 --> 00:52:52,159
a lot of collecting, and so that was kind of

869
00:52:52,159 --> 00:52:57,880
why PTI was foreigned Philippine Taxonomic Initiative. Like Johnny doesn't

870
00:52:58,119 --> 00:53:00,599
you know he works in like renewable energy, He doesn't.

871
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:04,639
He is not like a bondist by training. Jason is

872
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:11,719
Rob isn't Rob just loves plants, you know, loves plants.

873
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,159
Doesn't like people. Wonderful man, very nice. But you know,

874
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:21,119
misanthropy a little bit of that, which is completely understandable

875
00:53:21,159 --> 00:53:25,039
if someone's not a little cynical about the current human

876
00:53:25,039 --> 00:53:27,119
state of things. I can't really, I can't do that

877
00:53:27,199 --> 00:53:30,840
forced positivity thing that they do in California. No, normally

878
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:35,519
it's the Caucasians, right, the Caucasian liberal California thing. They like,

879
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:39,159
you're too negative, Like you know, they shit on you

880
00:53:39,159 --> 00:53:42,440
a little bit. Whereas like I like my tragedy, but

881
00:53:42,519 --> 00:53:44,400
I like it with the comedy too. I don't like

882
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:47,679
lying to myself about the tragedy. I just like drenching

883
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:51,199
it in comedy. And then of course keeping keeping a

884
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:55,400
good outlook on the geologic timescale and the relativity of

885
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,559
all of it. And I mean, you got to otherwise

886
00:53:58,559 --> 00:54:00,840
it'll eat you alive. You gotta be upbeat about it.

887
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,519
But you gotta be honest. You can't do the force

888
00:54:02,599 --> 00:54:06,199
positivity thing. But there's so much positivity in the beauty

889
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:08,480
of the living world. I mean, fuck, what do you need?

890
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:11,039
But I'm like that, I gotta. I see, if I

891
00:54:11,039 --> 00:54:13,679
don't focus on plants, then I start focusing on all

892
00:54:13,679 --> 00:54:16,039
the negative shit, and that's when you get the long

893
00:54:16,119 --> 00:54:19,000
ranting podcasts that you know, don't talk enough about Botanan

894
00:54:19,119 --> 00:54:21,239
or just me ranting about the car death cult and

895
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:26,159
consumerism and shit, which I do understand gets a little tiring.

896
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:31,239
But but but anyway, Yeah, so they just go out

897
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:34,840
and collect a ton of stuff, and thank god they do.

898
00:54:35,039 --> 00:54:37,039
But again they put in like a big clear planstic

899
00:54:37,079 --> 00:54:41,000
garbage bag, soaka in denatured alcohol. Just pour the straight

900
00:54:41,039 --> 00:54:44,440
up pour the denatured alcohol in the garbage bag with

901
00:54:44,519 --> 00:54:47,239
all the press specimens, and then they dry it later.

902
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,519
And the bummer with that is that you lose a

903
00:54:50,519 --> 00:54:55,679
lot of the color, but the specimen doesn't rot. And

904
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:58,360
of course, you know, you have to worry about mildew

905
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,760
and rot when you're in warm, humid areas, and it

906
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:04,760
was really, really humid. I felt like I was doing

907
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:08,000
Bickram yoga the whole time. The heat wasn't the issue

908
00:55:08,039 --> 00:55:10,199
for me. It's the heat combined with the humidity. It's

909
00:55:10,199 --> 00:55:13,039
that you're just you know, I used to do U

910
00:55:13,679 --> 00:55:17,760
Muytai and uh I remember Aftermuytai would get like a

911
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:19,960
headache because we would just we'd be training so hard,

912
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:24,599
just completely bathed in sweat. And so that's what really

913
00:55:24,599 --> 00:55:28,239
takes an audio. It's like you lose your electrolytes and

914
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:31,000
at some point you just your core temperature isn't cooling

915
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:35,679
down anymore because the sweat isn't evaporating, and so you

916
00:55:35,679 --> 00:55:38,000
know that humidity is the same. It's the same issue

917
00:55:38,039 --> 00:55:41,119
with plants. I mean, unless you can, unless you have

918
00:55:41,159 --> 00:55:43,679
a dehydrator. You can put that thing on a you know,

919
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,519
the specimens on a dehydrator for two days at low

920
00:55:47,599 --> 00:55:51,079
heat with air blowing through it. They're gonna get mildew

921
00:55:51,079 --> 00:55:54,280
when they're gonna rot. The dehydrator is nice because you

922
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:56,159
can preserve the color. But if you don't have that,

923
00:55:56,159 --> 00:55:59,440
the denatured alcohol works and those things will keep for

924
00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:03,599
weeks until you can dry them without rotting. And I

925
00:56:03,599 --> 00:56:06,400
think it's just the fumes in that sealed garbage bag

926
00:56:07,039 --> 00:56:11,119
with all the specimens too. Obviously that prevents fungi from

927
00:56:11,119 --> 00:56:15,880
getting established and from molding. But in any case, this

928
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:20,719
conagonium was fucking delightful. It was such a cool you know,

929
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:23,320
it was like three inches four inches across, looked like

930
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:25,639
these little disks. It was coming off of a tree.

931
00:56:26,159 --> 00:56:29,079
But it's entirely green, so you know, it's photosynthesizing. You know,

932
00:56:29,119 --> 00:56:30,519
it's got to be like it. It was just it

933
00:56:30,519 --> 00:56:34,480
looked like a weird cross between a moss and a polypoor,

934
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:40,519
like some some sphagnum moss and a polyport. It was

935
00:56:40,559 --> 00:56:43,119
so bizarre, it was so cool. But it was in

936
00:56:43,159 --> 00:56:47,400
these these what they call the mossy forest, which is

937
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:52,320
like that's like a definitive habitat type in the Philippines,

938
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:56,239
and it was kind of like cloud forest, but it's warmer.

939
00:56:56,559 --> 00:56:59,679
It's not cool. It's a little bit cooler than down below.

940
00:57:00,679 --> 00:57:03,440
Certainly more comfortable and it gets chilly at night, but

941
00:57:04,599 --> 00:57:08,840
entirely different forest composition. You know, up there at fifty

942
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:10,960
five hundred feet, then you would get at like nine

943
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,559
hundred feet in the lowland forest where the stronglow down

944
00:57:14,559 --> 00:57:18,320
and the reflesia were and there was a really cool

945
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:21,960
Pananga species there too. Pananga is a common genus of

946
00:57:22,719 --> 00:57:27,639
palm that gets maybe six to eight feet tall. But

947
00:57:28,079 --> 00:57:32,480
I think it was Pananga philippinensis. It had been tentatively id'das,

948
00:57:32,559 --> 00:57:36,159
but it had these. It had a spath. The inflorescence

949
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:45,239
comes out below, you know, below the petioles, and forgive me,

950
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:49,039
my palm morphology vocab is not what it should be.

951
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:52,320
But this it's got this spath on it kind of

952
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:57,079
like an aroid, like this protective bract. And then all

953
00:57:57,159 --> 00:58:00,199
these things that again look like some sort of had

954
00:58:00,199 --> 00:58:05,480
a nine tails or forgive me, anal beats. You know,

955
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,199
those are the inflorescences of this palm, and there's many

956
00:58:08,239 --> 00:58:10,400
of them. It looks kind of like a almost like

957
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:15,880
an octopus. The inflorescence branches are maybe I don't know,

958
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:23,280
ten to fourteen inches long, and they come out of

959
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:26,400
the space. The spathe falls off, and then the what

960
00:58:26,559 --> 00:58:30,840
looked like these tentacles or anal beats come off from

961
00:58:31,039 --> 00:58:37,519
from below these these petioles. And but this Penaga philipinensus,

962
00:58:37,599 --> 00:58:41,480
it had these really weird It was really confusing, and

963
00:58:41,519 --> 00:58:43,360
I still don't really know what was going on with

964
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:47,079
these things. There were the flowers or what would what

965
00:58:47,199 --> 00:58:50,760
I presume would be the flowers, But they were beneath

966
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:57,880
these like romboidal fatty structures, and there were many of

967
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:03,079
them on one of these inflorescence branches, and it was

968
00:59:03,159 --> 00:59:06,360
really puzzling to see. I guess it's I mean, they

969
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:10,480
weren't fruits because again this the spath had just fallen off.

970
00:59:10,519 --> 00:59:13,280
The spath was still attached. It was like this inflorescence

971
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:18,840
was just opening up. But these these white, you know, fatty,

972
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:25,639
oily romboidal structures were everywhere, looking like beads kind of.

973
00:59:25,719 --> 00:59:29,559
They were maybe like half an inch half an inch across,

974
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,440
and there were many of them, each one seeming to,

975
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:37,199
you know, pertain to one of these tiny flowers that

976
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,280
wasn't mature yet. I'm not It's got to be some

977
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:43,320
sort of attractant for whatever pollinates these things, you know,

978
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:46,079
and I guess it's probably bats. Like it's probably bats.

979
00:59:46,119 --> 00:59:50,320
Bats are attracted to these white, fatty structures and when

980
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:52,880
they go to get those, they somehow pollinate the flower.

981
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:54,760
I don't know, is anybody out there a palm freak?

982
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:59,840
What's going on with pananga? Pananga and heterospath were two

983
00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:03,199
of the genera of these palms. But it got me again.

984
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:09,400
You know, palms have been bastardized when you see them,

985
01:00:09,679 --> 01:00:12,599
you know, in human horticulture, But when you're seeing them

986
01:00:13,159 --> 01:00:15,679
in the forest, in the context of the ecology of

987
01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:19,320
the whole ecosystem, they become so much more interesting because

988
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:21,920
you're like, what the fuck is this thing doing. It's

989
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:24,760
here on its own, itsself sustaining, it's not being babied.

990
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:27,760
It's not a cult of var It's tied into this

991
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:31,760
whole network here, this whole network of life, you know,

992
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:35,440
the insects, the fungi and the soil, the birds, the bats,

993
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:39,719
whatever's pollinating this, whatever's dispersing the fruit, and so it's

994
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:43,159
you know, it's like a puzzle. I mean, every one

995
01:00:43,199 --> 01:00:45,760
of these living things is like a puzzle, and you

996
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,920
got to figure out why they're behaving the way they are,

997
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:51,599
why they have why they produce these kind of structures,

998
01:00:51,639 --> 01:00:53,920
why the flower is shaped the way it is, why

999
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,679
the leaves are shaped the way that it is. You know,

1000
01:00:56,920 --> 01:01:00,000
where is it growing, what is it? What others speed

1001
01:01:00,159 --> 01:01:04,920
she's is it growing with? And this pinaga was it's

1002
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:08,800
a really beautiful palm. Doesn't get that tall. Maybe six

1003
01:01:08,840 --> 01:01:13,400
to eight feet and it's growing there with these these philoklatus,

1004
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:16,440
these ancient conifers that get maybe thirty or forty feet tall.

1005
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:20,360
And there was Nepenthes ventricosa draped all over these things,

1006
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:23,239
and I guess those have been getting poached to. I

1007
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,360
think a lot of the you know, the villagers, and

1008
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:31,480
because it's an indigenous village in this area still, you know,

1009
01:01:31,519 --> 01:01:33,840
the villagers will go poacht these things. Man. Some of

1010
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:35,800
the guides, I mean, because you're forced to have a

1011
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:39,159
guide by the U d e n R, the Department

1012
01:01:39,199 --> 01:01:42,199
of Environment and Natural Resources, and so you know PTI

1013
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:46,679
they know all the guides there, and the guides were chill,

1014
01:01:46,719 --> 01:01:49,119
but they don't really have much interest in the plants

1015
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:51,920
aside from you know, can they sell them or something

1016
01:01:52,079 --> 01:01:56,159
or whatever. This one guy uh Kuyah which means older

1017
01:01:56,199 --> 01:02:02,639
brother in Tagalog, I guess Kuya Pugo was cool guy,

1018
01:02:02,719 --> 01:02:06,000
but man, he was like he was addicted the betel nut.

1019
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,480
They're all chewing betel nut, which is a highly carcinogenic

1020
01:02:09,559 --> 01:02:14,559
stimulant from the areca that's the genus of palm, and

1021
01:02:14,599 --> 01:02:16,400
then they wrap it in a piper leaf and put

1022
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:18,320
some tobacco in there and put it in their mouths,

1023
01:02:18,559 --> 01:02:21,760
and man, it fucks up. It fucks up a human

1024
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:24,159
mouth like you get these orange teeth. It's and it's

1025
01:02:24,199 --> 01:02:31,920
up like highly carcinogenic. What is it aracholine like aureka.

1026
01:02:32,199 --> 01:02:35,719
You know, the alkaloid is named after the Areka genus,

1027
01:02:37,519 --> 01:02:43,840
and it's incredibly addictive. Everybody's on betel nut. You know.

1028
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:46,920
It's not like speed, but it's it's a stimulant. It's like,

1029
01:02:47,039 --> 01:02:51,920
I assume it's somewhat akin to cod leaf. Cod leaf

1030
01:02:52,039 --> 01:02:56,119
is in Celeus. Tracey knew a couple people used to

1031
01:02:56,119 --> 01:02:59,159
grow it in California just for shits and giggles. They

1032
01:02:59,199 --> 01:03:01,559
wouldn't actually use it. And I chewed cott leaf once

1033
01:03:01,599 --> 01:03:04,360
and it didn't really do anything to me, but I

1034
01:03:04,400 --> 01:03:07,559
probably wasn't preparing it the right way. But you know,

1035
01:03:07,719 --> 01:03:10,679
off a friend's house is you know, San Louis obispo

1036
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:14,679
choots cott leaf, but you know cot is like COT's

1037
01:03:14,719 --> 01:03:18,599
another stimulant. It's h on the African content, I think

1038
01:03:18,599 --> 01:03:23,880
in Central Africa. But but anyways, yeah, but but Kuya Pugo, man,

1039
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:26,360
he was starting fires everywhere, like every any time we'd

1040
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:29,000
stop and we'd be in a certain area along the

1041
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:33,320
trail collecting for a while, he'd he'd start a little fight,

1042
01:03:33,519 --> 01:03:35,199
And for me, I was like, fuck, man, isn't he

1043
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:38,119
worried these are gonna spread? Because you know, I'm coming

1044
01:03:38,159 --> 01:03:41,559
from xeric environments where everything's super dry, and we were

1045
01:03:41,599 --> 01:03:45,039
there during the dry season. But again, it's it's it's

1046
01:03:45,039 --> 01:03:48,599
still pretty humid, and it's it's a it's a short

1047
01:03:48,719 --> 01:03:50,960
dry season compared to how much rain they get. So

1048
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:55,079
I guess there wasn't really a risk of much much fire,

1049
01:03:55,199 --> 01:03:57,719
but it was still kind of jarring. I'm like, why

1050
01:03:57,760 --> 01:03:59,280
is this dude sudden fires of the way. I guess

1051
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:02,440
he just likes fires. It smells nice. But you know,

1052
01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:04,199
what's the point? I think it just maybe a little

1053
01:04:04,199 --> 01:04:06,239
bit of a pyromaniac. You know, he's all hopped up

1054
01:04:06,239 --> 01:04:12,079
on betal nut pyromaniac, but just you know, why not

1055
01:04:12,119 --> 01:04:15,880
start fires? A nice guy? But and then you know

1056
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:18,000
that the mosquitoes weren't that bad here. That was a

1057
01:04:18,039 --> 01:04:21,679
weird thing, really bizarre. You know, you go to these

1058
01:04:21,719 --> 01:04:25,760
intact forests and the mosquitoes are not that bad. And

1059
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:29,400
I'm certainly and I'm sure there's certainly situations where that

1060
01:04:29,599 --> 01:04:32,559
changes and the mosquitoes can get really bad, like if

1061
01:04:32,559 --> 01:04:34,920
you're near a body of stagnant water or something. But

1062
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:39,119
for the most part, there wasn't a heavy mosquito presence.

1063
01:04:39,119 --> 01:04:42,199
I think I got bit like once or twice when

1064
01:04:42,239 --> 01:04:46,599
I was out there. And again, there's tons of frogs

1065
01:04:46,599 --> 01:04:48,440
and probably a lot of other things that are keeping

1066
01:04:48,480 --> 01:04:52,000
mosquite the mosquitoes there in check, not to mention other insects.

1067
01:04:52,880 --> 01:04:55,840
So again, you know, you're always gonna get the worst

1068
01:04:56,440 --> 01:04:59,800
mosquito problems in areas where the forest has been cleared

1069
01:05:00,159 --> 01:05:05,119
and there's a lot of human development. But in any case,

1070
01:05:06,639 --> 01:05:08,960
we made it up to about that for those first

1071
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:12,159
few days where the phyloclitus was. We made it up

1072
01:05:12,159 --> 01:05:14,880
to about fifty six hundred and fifty seven hundred feet

1073
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:19,280
and then turned back down to go around. The forest

1074
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:23,159
got pretty thick. The trail was non existent at times.

1075
01:05:23,239 --> 01:05:24,639
You know, you just have to kind of look for

1076
01:05:24,679 --> 01:05:28,760
the machete hacked panangas. This palm too, that's the other thing,

1077
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:32,000
This pananga palm, which is a really cool palm genus.

1078
01:05:32,440 --> 01:05:36,519
They only get, you know, like an inch and a

1079
01:05:36,559 --> 01:05:41,639
half diameter at most, but there it's really structurally sound wood,

1080
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:46,000
you know, and Pogo made us all. I think he

1081
01:05:46,039 --> 01:05:49,239
was making umself, you know, walking sticks out of this

1082
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:53,599
and goddamn and coming down from the first ridge we

1083
01:05:53,639 --> 01:05:57,599
went up to, uh, it was really steep and coming

1084
01:05:57,800 --> 01:06:00,119
down was just fucking brutal on my knees. I was

1085
01:06:00,159 --> 01:06:02,519
walking because I'm carrying all this shit too. The camera

1086
01:06:02,599 --> 01:06:05,320
I have weighs like three times as much as my

1087
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:08,320
old camera, my old Nikon I used to just use

1088
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:10,320
a little D seventy five hundred. Now I'm using a

1089
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:12,599
Nikon Z and it doesn't have a built in flash,

1090
01:06:12,639 --> 01:06:15,880
so you have to bring a flash because it's this

1091
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:19,840
dark forest and I'm trying to get decent depth of field,

1092
01:06:20,039 --> 01:06:24,920
you know, some I'm shooting at F sixteen F twenty apertures,

1093
01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:27,440
which are small apertures, which means not that not that

1094
01:06:27,519 --> 01:06:29,159
much light is getting in, so you got to use

1095
01:06:30,559 --> 01:06:32,559
a flash. And so I'm just carrying all this shit.

1096
01:06:32,599 --> 01:06:34,320
My knees are just getting tore up. So I ended

1097
01:06:34,400 --> 01:06:38,599
up just walking backwards down some of the steeper parts

1098
01:06:38,599 --> 01:06:41,079
of a hill, like literally just looking behind me and

1099
01:06:41,119 --> 01:06:45,039
walking backwards so that my toes could absorb the shock.

1100
01:06:45,119 --> 01:06:48,360
The ball of my foot could absorb the shock because

1101
01:06:48,400 --> 01:06:50,280
these forests were really steep, and I have not been

1102
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:54,320
nice to my knees over the years anyway, you know, running, biking,

1103
01:06:54,360 --> 01:06:59,079
all this shit, and so yeah, man, it was just

1104
01:06:59,119 --> 01:07:02,119
it was fucking rough first day, you know, living in

1105
01:07:02,159 --> 01:07:06,039
South Texas and not getting as much exercise as I

1106
01:07:06,079 --> 01:07:09,920
probably should because biking is terrifying. I literally bike with

1107
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:13,119
a baseball bat in a holster just to keep the

1108
01:07:13,159 --> 01:07:15,960
cars away. And the drivers in South Texas are probably

1109
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:21,719
some of the worst in the United States, so there's

1110
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:23,440
no bike lanes or anything. So if you know, if

1111
01:07:23,440 --> 01:07:25,760
I literally bike, when I'm biking around where I live,

1112
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,639
I'm literally have a holstered baseball bat that I hold

1113
01:07:28,639 --> 01:07:30,840
out to the side, you know, to make sure that

1114
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:34,280
the trucks and cars because they don't they don't care

1115
01:07:34,280 --> 01:07:36,400
about hitting you, but they don't want to fuck up

1116
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:37,960
the paint job on their car. So you're holding this

1117
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:40,559
baseball bat out to the side, they're gonna keep a

1118
01:07:40,599 --> 01:07:45,360
wide berth, they're gonna steer clear. So anyway, but having

1119
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:48,320
that Panaga walking stick really helped, you know. And it's

1120
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:51,119
like friends of mine that do long distance hiking, they

1121
01:07:51,119 --> 01:07:52,719
all say the same shit. They're like, Yeah, I used

1122
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:57,800
to make fun of those, those like yuppie hiker walking poles,

1123
01:07:57,840 --> 01:08:01,719
but you really need them, especially on long distance hikes,

1124
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:04,920
and especially if you're carrying a bunch of shit and so.

1125
01:08:06,199 --> 01:08:08,159
And also it's good to you know, for snakes too,

1126
01:08:08,159 --> 01:08:10,280
if you're walking through a bunch of brush. You can't

1127
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:12,519
see you can't see the ground in front of you.

1128
01:08:13,679 --> 01:08:17,560
But a really cool fern that I guess is common

1129
01:08:17,640 --> 01:08:21,279
throughout Malaysia and one that I had never seen before.

1130
01:08:21,319 --> 01:08:25,239
It was just a terrestrial fern, maybe three or four

1131
01:08:25,279 --> 01:08:28,640
feet tall at most, but it forms these massive colonies

1132
01:08:29,279 --> 01:08:33,279
and the whole stem, of course, is underground. It spreads

1133
01:08:33,359 --> 01:08:38,399
rhizominously and then sends up these petioles, uh, you know,

1134
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:40,880
petiole attached to a leaf blade, which and the whole

1135
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:43,520
that whole structure, the petiole and leaf blade together is

1136
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:46,039
like you know, sometimes three or four feet tall, and

1137
01:08:46,079 --> 01:08:50,079
they they look like these umbrella ferns. Really bizarre structure.

1138
01:08:52,479 --> 01:08:56,880
And it was dipterous kunjagata. So look it up. It's

1139
01:08:56,880 --> 01:08:59,239
a really cool fucking fern. All these plants if you

1140
01:08:59,239 --> 01:09:00,560
want to see them. You can see him on my

1141
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:04,840
I naturalist. You can just go to Explore user Joey

1142
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:08,439
Santour and then type in for country Philippines and you'll

1143
01:09:08,479 --> 01:09:11,800
see a list of everything I observed there. But Dipterus

1144
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:16,239
kunjagata was dope. I mean, the leaf blade looks like

1145
01:09:16,279 --> 01:09:19,640
an umbrella. It's kind of palmy, it's got these prominent

1146
01:09:19,760 --> 01:09:24,880
yellow veins in it, beautiful colors, beautiful lime green underside,

1147
01:09:24,960 --> 01:09:29,359
glabrous up top, kind of scaly on the underside, in

1148
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:35,159
a smooth and plastic y up top. And then of

1149
01:09:35,199 --> 01:09:37,560
course to figure out, you know what family you're looking at,

1150
01:09:38,239 --> 01:09:40,399
you gotta find the story. You gotta find the clusters

1151
01:09:40,399 --> 01:09:43,720
of sporangia, which you got to find that one leaf

1152
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:45,720
that has the story on them, because of course most

1153
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:49,239
of the leaves don't, they're just sterile. You find the sporophyl,

1154
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:52,960
the reproductive leaf, and then look at the story and

1155
01:09:53,039 --> 01:09:58,279
it just had a you know, sorai condistant with dip Terodacey,

1156
01:09:58,520 --> 01:10:01,720
which was the the family. But it was formed of

1157
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:05,159
these large colonies. It was fucking beautiful fern. Really cool.

1158
01:10:08,359 --> 01:10:10,880
It'd be cool to grow that from spore. See how

1159
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:14,600
long it takes to go from gometophyte to a full

1160
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:21,560
grown sporophyte, So what the fuck? What the fuck is

1161
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:23,720
there was a Bogonia. God that there was a Begonia

1162
01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:28,399
species that just got described in twenty twenty two, Bogonia

1163
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:32,600
naima n A E m A. And it looks like

1164
01:10:33,279 --> 01:10:37,600
this genus known as a latto stema, which is very

1165
01:10:37,640 --> 01:10:42,039
species rich in this region. A latto stema E l

1166
01:10:42,079 --> 01:10:46,199
A t O S T E m A so called

1167
01:10:46,239 --> 01:10:49,039
because I guess it's a These are wind pollinated plants.

1168
01:10:49,079 --> 01:10:52,479
They're in erta case the nettle family, so they're wind

1169
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:58,359
pollinated and they eject the stamens actively eject the pollen

1170
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:02,720
out onto the air current where we'll then hopefully blow

1171
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:07,000
over to you know, a female flower and pollinate the

1172
01:11:07,039 --> 01:11:11,119
female flower. And a latto stema being an erta case

1173
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:15,359
is not very pleasant I imagine for many herbivores to eat.

1174
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:19,720
And so there's been selection for plants that kind of

1175
01:11:19,760 --> 01:11:21,720
look like that have the leaf shape and it's a

1176
01:11:21,800 --> 01:11:26,000
very distinct leaf shape. It's kind of falcate and toothed.

1177
01:11:27,960 --> 01:11:31,239
There's been selection in this region because of this plant

1178
01:11:31,239 --> 01:11:33,199
that a lot of herbivores presumably don't want to eat.

1179
01:11:33,239 --> 01:11:36,600
There's been selection for plants that look like it. So

1180
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,760
a lot of plants have evolved to look like a

1181
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:45,159
latto stema, and this Bigonia is one of those. There

1182
01:11:45,239 --> 01:11:47,720
was a couple Cirtandra that do this as well. I

1183
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:51,800
think that, I mean, the leaves look like a latto stema,

1184
01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:54,680
and I guess they've just been Certandra's a genus in

1185
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:59,880
the African violet family gas near aac so showy by

1186
01:12:00,079 --> 01:12:06,159
laterally symmetrical flowers, often with tricomb's on the corolla trademarks

1187
01:12:06,159 --> 01:12:10,439
to the African violet family gets near ac and so Cirtandra.

1188
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:13,399
There's a couple of species of Cirtandra that have leaves

1189
01:12:13,439 --> 01:12:17,399
that seem to be mimicking a latto stema or a

1190
01:12:17,439 --> 01:12:19,960
more appropriate way to say it would be have been

1191
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:25,000
selected for, evolutionarily speaking, to look like a latto stema leaves.

1192
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:26,960
And the same thing was going on with this Pogonia.

1193
01:12:27,439 --> 01:12:31,000
And there's a ton of Bigonia diversity in the Philippines

1194
01:12:31,000 --> 01:12:34,000
as well. There's, you know, a couple new species that

1195
01:12:34,039 --> 01:12:35,840
have not been described yet, Like there were some that

1196
01:12:35,880 --> 01:12:38,960
we saw where rob was like getties have not been

1197
01:12:39,279 --> 01:12:44,359
described yet. This is a new probably new species, and

1198
01:12:44,399 --> 01:12:47,359
this Pogonia naima, I guess just got described in twenty

1199
01:12:47,399 --> 01:12:49,520
twenty two. And yeah, man, it looks like it straight

1200
01:12:49,560 --> 01:12:52,359
up looks like a latto stema, you know, from And

1201
01:12:52,359 --> 01:12:54,560
I think that's part of the reason it maybe wasn't

1202
01:12:54,600 --> 01:12:57,399
described until then. It's because people just would pass by

1203
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:00,760
it and if it wasn't flowering, it would just be

1204
01:13:00,880 --> 01:13:04,920
assumed to be another species of a latto stema. But

1205
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:08,479
it's you know, you look closer and it's there's key trademarks.

1206
01:13:08,520 --> 01:13:11,479
It's missing, it's missing some of the stipules, you know,

1207
01:13:11,560 --> 01:13:13,760
those bracts at the base of the leaf, at the

1208
01:13:13,760 --> 01:13:17,319
base of the petiole where the petiole meets to shoot.

1209
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:21,880
You know, there's defining characteristics. Once you know the genus Aladostema,

1210
01:13:21,960 --> 01:13:23,640
you can look for and if it doesn't have it,

1211
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:27,159
you can tell, oh, this is that Bogoonia. But for

1212
01:13:27,199 --> 01:13:30,399
the most part, it's it's it's a really good mimic

1213
01:13:31,039 --> 01:13:33,800
and apparently that's worked for it to avoid or bivy

1214
01:13:34,319 --> 01:13:36,880
because I imagine a lot of the bogonias, a lot

1215
01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:42,079
of the burgonias, a lot of the begonias are you know,

1216
01:13:42,159 --> 01:13:45,479
being as succulent as they can be, are probably highly

1217
01:13:45,560 --> 01:13:52,039
desirable on the menu for the local herbivores, most of which,

1218
01:13:52,079 --> 01:13:56,279
though I think, have been hunted in their populations, are crashing.

1219
01:13:56,520 --> 01:14:00,000
It is the anthropis scene. Remember again, it's the whole

1220
01:14:00,159 --> 01:14:02,880
time I'm there, I'm thinking about this. The arguments you

1221
01:14:02,920 --> 01:14:06,319
always hear on social media that get you know, just

1222
01:14:06,560 --> 01:14:10,680
such simplistic binary thinking, like it's just capitalism, it's just

1223
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,760
what about a digital stewardship, and like yet there's you know,

1224
01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:17,720
those are generalizations and there's a lot of truth and

1225
01:14:17,840 --> 01:14:21,279
reason behind them, but that they're also just way oversimplified,

1226
01:14:21,439 --> 01:14:24,840
and it's it's too simplistic. It's kind of idiotic. It's

1227
01:14:24,880 --> 01:14:27,960
black and white thinking. It's slogans, it's shit that gets parroted,

1228
01:14:28,720 --> 01:14:30,720
you know, you know among people in their twenties, no

1229
01:14:30,760 --> 01:14:36,640
offense on social media, you know. The uh, it's just

1230
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:39,960
not as simple as that. The reasons for the land clearance,

1231
01:14:40,039 --> 01:14:43,119
for the overhunting, for all this shit, it can't be.

1232
01:14:44,000 --> 01:14:46,239
It can't be broken down so easily, right. The one

1233
01:14:46,279 --> 01:14:51,640
thing that prevents that is having an enlightened society and

1234
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:55,239
enlightened outlook that values the living world around it and

1235
01:14:55,319 --> 01:14:59,239
to assume that just inherently comes with any kind of

1236
01:14:59,279 --> 01:15:02,800
indigenous siety, or that they would come that would inherently come,

1237
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:10,039
you know, with some other form of of economic system

1238
01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:14,880
is foolish, right, It's not entirely wrong, but to just

1239
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:17,840
put it as black and white as that is, it's

1240
01:15:17,920 --> 01:15:25,640
pretty fucking stupid. You know. Capitalism certainly doesn't it doesn't make,

1241
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:29,239
it doesn't help, you know, it certainly inflames the problems

1242
01:15:29,279 --> 01:15:31,439
a lot. But you know, and especially in the case

1243
01:15:31,479 --> 01:15:34,840
of huge multinational corporations going into put in hydro electric

1244
01:15:35,039 --> 01:15:39,720
electric dams or mining operations, I mean, that's fuck. That's

1245
01:15:40,720 --> 01:15:45,680
that's obviously, you know, a blatant case of of an

1246
01:15:45,760 --> 01:15:49,520
economic system fucking over the landscape and the ecology. But

1247
01:15:49,560 --> 01:15:51,960
again it's not always it's not always as simple as that. Like,

1248
01:15:52,000 --> 01:15:55,119
there was a population of another Reflegia species that Jason

1249
01:15:55,159 --> 01:15:59,560
had told me he had seen five or six years ago,

1250
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:03,079
and when PTI first started going to those northern forests

1251
01:16:03,119 --> 01:16:05,039
that we were at the first couple of days, that

1252
01:16:05,159 --> 01:16:10,359
got entirely extirpated and is now just tomato fields for

1253
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:15,399
the local villagers. And you know, a lot of the

1254
01:16:15,399 --> 01:16:19,119
tomatoes are just still sitting there rotting on the vine,

1255
01:16:19,279 --> 01:16:22,920
you know, and there refleag is gone, the host plant

1256
01:16:23,000 --> 01:16:26,359
is gone, you know, and at what point does it stop?

1257
01:16:28,359 --> 01:16:31,279
It's what point will it stop? I don't think it will.

1258
01:16:31,319 --> 01:16:34,600
I mean, what what is going to prevent that that

1259
01:16:34,760 --> 01:16:41,079
land clearance from gobbling up everything? So it's frustrated, But anyway,

1260
01:16:41,119 --> 01:16:45,399
they're trying to get they're trying to get these this

1261
01:16:45,520 --> 01:16:49,800
area protected, you know, at least protecting little remnant patches

1262
01:16:49,840 --> 01:16:54,399
of it and also documenting it. But then of course

1263
01:16:54,439 --> 01:16:59,079
it comes down to enforcement, and you know what, who's

1264
01:16:59,119 --> 01:17:01,880
going to enforce it? Who's gonna I mean, we heard

1265
01:17:01,960 --> 01:17:05,800
chainsaws the entire time we were in those northern forests.

1266
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:13,079
We heard chainsaws. We saw cut dipterot carps, you know,

1267
01:17:13,239 --> 01:17:16,319
trees that were they had the little uh what is

1268
01:17:16,359 --> 01:17:20,399
it called? The little Alaska mill is the common name

1269
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:22,640
for it here. But you know, just basically a way

1270
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:26,359
to like a brace for the chainsaw so that once

1271
01:17:26,399 --> 01:17:28,039
you cut down a tree, you can mill your own

1272
01:17:28,119 --> 01:17:30,199
lumber out of it, just right there on the spot

1273
01:17:30,279 --> 01:17:33,800
in the field. I mean, we heard chainsaws the entire time.

1274
01:17:35,439 --> 01:17:41,399
So yeah, I mean, who knows, man, I mean it's

1275
01:17:41,039 --> 01:17:45,439
not necessarily going to stop, but in any case, it

1276
01:17:45,560 --> 01:17:49,119
was wonderful to see these these forests. Man, it was

1277
01:17:49,199 --> 01:17:54,039
really really special. And I want to go back, man,

1278
01:17:54,079 --> 01:17:55,880
and I want to do I want to like set

1279
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:59,439
up some presentations, get people into using eye naturalists, get

1280
01:17:59,479 --> 01:18:05,399
people in to valuing the native plants, and getting away

1281
01:18:05,479 --> 01:18:09,800
from like the indoctrinated European horticultural outlook that I'm always

1282
01:18:09,800 --> 01:18:11,880
shitting on. If you get a chance, watch that wild

1283
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:14,960
Ones presentation I did. It's on YouTube if you just

1284
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:18,840
type in wild Ones Joey Santor. It's basically an hour

1285
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:22,039
and a half long rant, which you probably heard if

1286
01:18:22,079 --> 01:18:25,760
you listen to this podcast. But I think it was

1287
01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:28,760
received pretty well. There were a couple people that seemed

1288
01:18:28,760 --> 01:18:32,600
defended by it, who maybe had never heard of me

1289
01:18:32,680 --> 01:18:34,760
before and didn't know what I was going to do.

1290
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:36,760
You know, they were just kind of watching it because

1291
01:18:36,760 --> 01:18:41,439
wild Ones does these presentations, and you know, they go

1292
01:18:41,479 --> 01:18:43,199
to all of them, they follow all of them. They

1293
01:18:43,199 --> 01:18:47,319
didn't do their homework, and obviously I was not what

1294
01:18:47,359 --> 01:18:50,159
they were expecting when you look at some of the

1295
01:18:50,199 --> 01:18:54,640
previous presenters that wild Ones has had. But I really

1296
01:18:54,680 --> 01:18:58,279
appreciate wild ones having me though, and being willing to

1297
01:18:58,359 --> 01:19:04,159
break with break with the status quo and uh and

1298
01:19:04,159 --> 01:19:08,520
and have have me come on there and do my thing,

1299
01:19:09,159 --> 01:19:12,199
because again it's very different from many of the other

1300
01:19:12,279 --> 01:19:17,319
presenters or much have a much more softer tone and

1301
01:19:17,399 --> 01:19:23,920
are you know, more just traditional landscape, very clean cut

1302
01:19:23,039 --> 01:19:29,199
the native plant advocates that we're doing presentations on landscaping.

1303
01:19:29,239 --> 01:19:32,439
They're cool presentations. I've seen a couple of them, but yeah,

1304
01:19:32,479 --> 01:19:34,479
I think it's what I do is a little bit different,

1305
01:19:34,479 --> 01:19:37,359
and of course what I do isn't for everybody, but

1306
01:19:39,479 --> 01:19:42,800
but I think there's obviously a big difference between when

1307
01:19:42,800 --> 01:19:48,359
you come at plants from that background of the European

1308
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:52,279
gardening style, wanting the bougain villas and the hedged all

1309
01:19:52,279 --> 01:19:56,039
the hedge stuff and the showy flowers and variegated leaves.

1310
01:19:56,039 --> 01:20:01,800
There's a gap between that and actually having a context

1311
01:20:01,800 --> 01:20:04,840
for the native ecology and wanting to grow things because

1312
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:08,000
they're a piece of that native living ecosystem around you,

1313
01:20:08,920 --> 01:20:12,560
even though they may not be the showiest things. I mean,

1314
01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:16,039
I think they're all fucking beautiful because it's the context, right,

1315
01:20:16,079 --> 01:20:20,319
It's understanding the context, Like you know, a laddo'stema is

1316
01:20:20,359 --> 01:20:23,600
not a plant anyone's gonna want to grow if they're

1317
01:20:23,640 --> 01:20:29,319
coming at botany or at horticulture from the standpoint of

1318
01:20:29,800 --> 01:20:36,560
nineteenth century Victorian European or Spanish colonial style gardening, right,

1319
01:20:36,640 --> 01:20:39,359
they want the bugain villas. They're probably not going to

1320
01:20:39,520 --> 01:20:42,359
like a plant like a latins thema. But when you

1321
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:45,840
learn about the ecological importance of a lattos dema, the

1322
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:49,199
insects that use it as a host plant, how other

1323
01:20:49,319 --> 01:20:52,319
plants have evolved to mimic the leaves of a lattos

1324
01:20:52,319 --> 01:20:56,000
stema to avoid being eaten, things like that, it makes

1325
01:20:56,000 --> 01:20:58,800
it a lot more exciting. And it's just it's such

1326
01:20:58,880 --> 01:21:02,279
a dominant co opponent of the flora there. How could

1327
01:21:02,319 --> 01:21:04,600
it not be important, How could it not be playing

1328
01:21:04,600 --> 01:21:08,159
a huge role in that living machine in that place,

1329
01:21:08,279 --> 01:21:11,520
in that specific time. All right, enough for that, Let's

1330
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:13,720
take a little break and listen to some of the birds.

1331
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:16,640
Listen to these fucking birds. This is a really pleasant

1332
01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:20,039
little background. Per pardon the buzzing too. I had and

1333
01:21:20,119 --> 01:21:23,319
I was recording with my phone, just recording the forest canopy,

1334
01:21:23,359 --> 01:21:25,560
and I was getting notifications. So it's fucking annoying. I

1335
01:21:25,600 --> 01:21:28,239
should have put in do not disturb, but whatever, you

1336
01:21:28,239 --> 01:22:30,079
can't ignore. It's only a second. And this was like

1337
01:22:30,239 --> 01:22:32,279
this was like six in the morning, so the cicadas

1338
01:22:32,279 --> 01:22:34,840
hadn't even woken up yet. The cicadas that sounded like

1339
01:22:34,880 --> 01:22:39,520
burglar alarms. I mean, the cicadas were fucking deafening. And

1340
01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:41,960
it's it was really cool too because they would they

1341
01:22:41,960 --> 01:22:45,000
would wane in and out, which made it feel all

1342
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:49,359
the more psychedelic and surreal. And now a word from

1343
01:22:49,399 --> 01:23:02,720
our sponsor, Kay, let us plan your next visit to

1344
01:23:02,760 --> 01:23:08,640
Pixley Botanical Garden. On Thursday, April sixteenth, Pixley Botanical Garden

1345
01:23:08,680 --> 01:23:12,520
is having its fifty second annual formal Cotillion dinner, hosted

1346
01:23:12,600 --> 01:23:15,279
exclusively for the children of the wealthy donor class that

1347
01:23:15,359 --> 01:23:19,079
makes the seminal garden possible. This year, due to a

1348
01:23:19,079 --> 01:23:23,239
grant from the DuPont Foundation, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, we

1349
01:23:23,279 --> 01:23:26,279
have finally installed an electric perimeter fence to keep the poor,

1350
01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:30,560
working class and unsavory characters of the surrounding neighborhood out

1351
01:23:30,560 --> 01:23:32,960
of the garden. We have also made a number of

1352
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:34,880
new changes at the garden and we can't wait to

1353
01:23:34,920 --> 01:23:37,920
show you all of them. We have finally.

1354
01:23:37,600 --> 01:23:41,239
Speaker 4: Destroyed the entire collection in the Desert House after firing

1355
01:23:41,279 --> 01:23:44,199
the entire staff, and replaced it with a rich array

1356
01:23:44,239 --> 01:23:49,199
of topiary glass sculptures, cyclomens and weeping mums, all in

1357
01:23:49,279 --> 01:23:52,439
a design style that represents a combination of Florida's Strip

1358
01:23:52,479 --> 01:23:56,720
Mall meets Tuscan Villa. Just outside the Glasshouse gate, we

1359
01:23:56,760 --> 01:23:59,880
have installed a luxurious and garish floral display known as

1360
01:24:00,279 --> 01:24:04,920
Living Stained Glass by the famed Dutch artist Hans Bergen Jigger.

1361
01:24:05,640 --> 01:24:08,640
Be sure to visit our English Victorian Torture garden as well.

1362
01:24:09,359 --> 01:24:12,159
This is an exclusive event designed to raise more money

1363
01:24:12,399 --> 01:24:14,560
to improve the look of the garden and make it

1364
01:24:14,600 --> 01:24:17,159
more palatable to the local elite who give us money,

1365
01:24:17,520 --> 01:24:21,079
so please be sure to register early only at Pixley

1366
01:24:21,079 --> 01:24:29,279
Botanicalgarden dot com.

1367
01:24:29,520 --> 01:24:32,479
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm back. We're chilling out right now. You know

1368
01:24:32,520 --> 01:24:35,239
it's nice. I gotta tell you it's not too hot.

1369
01:24:35,319 --> 01:24:38,039
It's only like ninety degrees, maybe eighty five degrees. We're

1370
01:24:38,079 --> 01:24:41,039
hanging out in the shade. Me and Louis near the

1371
01:24:41,560 --> 01:24:45,239
semi legal garden over here back in South Texas. It's

1372
01:24:45,239 --> 01:24:47,439
been a few days since i'd last talked to you

1373
01:24:48,079 --> 01:24:52,079
and went to Thorn Scrub checked on some things. It's crazy, man,

1374
01:24:52,119 --> 01:24:54,800
all the payotes at thorn scrub. I was there two

1375
01:24:54,840 --> 01:24:57,439
weeks ago and I seen all the payote. I was

1376
01:24:57,479 --> 01:25:01,399
looking for the payotes and they just, you know, unlike

1377
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:03,279
so many of the other cactus that we have there,

1378
01:25:03,279 --> 01:25:05,840
like the Mammaluria sphica, which are almost all gone. The

1379
01:25:05,880 --> 01:25:09,520
pigs have almost gotten all of them, and a couple

1380
01:25:09,560 --> 01:25:12,760
you know it kindo serious any Acanthus, which is known

1381
01:25:12,760 --> 01:25:15,239
as the Pataia hedgehog cactus. It's one of the common

1382
01:25:15,319 --> 01:25:18,520
it's one of many species known as the Patia hedgehog cactus.

1383
01:25:18,880 --> 01:25:22,399
But you know that thing, the hedgehog cacti. When I

1384
01:25:22,479 --> 01:25:24,079
was there last, because the drought has been so bad,

1385
01:25:24,079 --> 01:25:26,439
we're all sucked in like it. It's like its own

1386
01:25:26,840 --> 01:25:29,560
thorn scrub drought gauge. I mean, they looked like absolute shit.

1387
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:32,079
They had flower buds, but they were not going off

1388
01:25:32,159 --> 01:25:34,960
yet because you could tell they were probably filled with

1389
01:25:34,960 --> 01:25:38,119
stress hormones that we're telling them to conserve their energy.

1390
01:25:38,119 --> 01:25:39,720
But then we got a little bit of rain, the

1391
01:25:39,760 --> 01:25:42,800
peyotees swelled up. The kindo serious any acanthus all bloomed.

1392
01:25:44,520 --> 01:25:46,800
It was like that drought we went through was like

1393
01:25:46,840 --> 01:25:50,920
a genome altering event, like a population the genome of

1394
01:25:51,000 --> 01:25:54,920
the population altering event, you know. Whereas surely there was

1395
01:25:54,920 --> 01:25:58,279
some mortality among all the different shrubs and other plants

1396
01:25:59,279 --> 01:26:01,359
because it was just so intense. Normally we get a

1397
01:26:01,359 --> 01:26:03,239
little bit of rain. It had not rained at all

1398
01:26:03,600 --> 01:26:08,439
since January. But uh, oh god, it was sad man,

1399
01:26:08,800 --> 01:26:13,159
it was said, thorn scrub looked like shit. It just

1400
01:26:13,279 --> 01:26:16,159
was really brutally dry, and so now everything got water

1401
01:26:16,239 --> 01:26:19,960
and things are starting to leaf out again. Even saw

1402
01:26:19,960 --> 01:26:24,439
a baby tortoise, baby Texas tortoise. But but you know,

1403
01:26:24,800 --> 01:26:26,800
when the droughts get that bad, I mean it, it

1404
01:26:26,880 --> 01:26:29,159
really does act like a filter, like not all the

1405
01:26:29,199 --> 01:26:32,079
plants make it through it, even though they're all, you know,

1406
01:26:32,239 --> 01:26:36,880
drought adapted that kinda. I don't know, it's inter I

1407
01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:39,279
like thinking about shit like that because it's you realize

1408
01:26:39,960 --> 01:26:42,520
so many of those intense drought periods. I mean this,

1409
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:45,159
who knows what's causing this? If it's climate change, is

1410
01:26:45,199 --> 01:26:48,119
anything to do with it or what? You know. The

1411
01:26:48,119 --> 01:26:51,039
oil companies have been really good at propagandizing people, getting

1412
01:26:51,079 --> 01:26:54,079
them to dismiss climate changes any possibility for a lot

1413
01:26:54,119 --> 01:26:56,399
of this depending on where you are, it's all regionally specific,

1414
01:26:56,399 --> 01:27:00,560
of course. But you look at you you look at

1415
01:27:00,600 --> 01:27:02,720
droughts like that over the course of the last however

1416
01:27:02,760 --> 01:27:05,760
many five hundred, six hundred years, five thousand and six

1417
01:27:05,840 --> 01:27:09,560
thousand years, and you realize that's how that's basically a

1418
01:27:09,600 --> 01:27:12,439
natural selection works. You know, it's it calls a few

1419
01:27:12,479 --> 01:27:17,479
members of the population, which maybe assuming it's something phenotypic

1420
01:27:17,520 --> 01:27:19,720
about them and not just they were in a bad location,

1421
01:27:21,640 --> 01:27:23,359
you know, where like the soil wasn't as deep, it

1422
01:27:23,359 --> 01:27:25,479
was a little thinner, whatever, but it but there's something

1423
01:27:25,479 --> 01:27:27,840
phenotypic about them that enabled them to not cope with

1424
01:27:27,880 --> 01:27:33,159
the intense drought conditions as severely as well as some

1425
01:27:33,279 --> 01:27:37,079
of the uh you know, some of their neighbors in

1426
01:27:37,119 --> 01:27:40,479
the same population, the same in the same species, and

1427
01:27:40,560 --> 01:27:44,399
uh and so over however many drought periods it happens.

1428
01:27:44,399 --> 01:27:51,640
It basically it breeds a more drought uh drought adapted population. Right,

1429
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:53,359
I think the same thing a human being does with

1430
01:27:54,439 --> 01:27:56,199
I know I've ranted about this before. I just I

1431
01:27:56,239 --> 01:28:00,239
think it's interesting because it was I've never seen since

1432
01:28:00,239 --> 01:28:02,159
I've been in Texas. I haven't seen a drought that bad,

1433
01:28:02,199 --> 01:28:05,199
and I haven't seen the thorn scrub looking as rough

1434
01:28:05,239 --> 01:28:09,840
as it did, you know, three weeks ago. But yeah, anyway,

1435
01:28:09,880 --> 01:28:13,199
now we got some rain and so it's crazy the payotes.

1436
01:28:13,359 --> 01:28:16,520
Some of them are bursting through the soil like lifting up,

1437
01:28:16,640 --> 01:28:18,720
cracking the soil and lifting it up, just like a

1438
01:28:18,760 --> 01:28:23,159
truffle wood, you know, or a mushroom. So I forget

1439
01:28:23,239 --> 01:28:24,640
some of them are there, you know, or I just

1440
01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:28,399
assume pigs got all of them. And then suddenly like

1441
01:28:28,439 --> 01:28:30,399
there was a mesquite tree where there's one, I know

1442
01:28:30,439 --> 01:28:33,039
there's one. There used to be more. I assume they

1443
01:28:33,079 --> 01:28:36,960
were all gone. And then I was there after a rain,

1444
01:28:37,800 --> 01:28:39,880
after the rain, just like a few days ago, and

1445
01:28:40,640 --> 01:28:42,880
there were like seven more that I didn't see a

1446
01:28:42,920 --> 01:28:46,079
month ago that I saw maybe two years ago when

1447
01:28:46,079 --> 01:28:49,439
they look good, but you know, so and they were

1448
01:28:49,439 --> 01:28:52,720
like busting up through the Soil's it's really remarkable to watch.

1449
01:28:52,720 --> 01:28:54,680
And you got to remember peyote, of course, has that

1450
01:28:56,439 --> 01:29:00,560
deep d cell battery literally looks like a de cell

1451
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:04,800
battery of a root. But yeah, it was. It was

1452
01:29:04,960 --> 01:29:08,319
fucking great being there. I just hope we need more rain.

1453
01:29:08,560 --> 01:29:11,640
You know the tortoises. We saw one tortoise. There's probably

1454
01:29:11,680 --> 01:29:13,840
a lot that are not out. I think a lot

1455
01:29:13,880 --> 01:29:15,720
of the tortoises took a hit from the drought too.

1456
01:29:16,279 --> 01:29:18,359
Found a lot. And I found like three or four shells,

1457
01:29:19,119 --> 01:29:23,640
three or four empty shells, you know, dead tortoise remnants. Anyway,

1458
01:29:23,640 --> 01:29:27,359
in other news, my publisher reached out to me a

1459
01:29:27,399 --> 01:29:30,319
couple of days ago, and I guess Concrete Bondi's number

1460
01:29:30,319 --> 01:29:34,159
seven on the New York Times Hardcover nonfiction bestseller list,

1461
01:29:34,399 --> 01:29:36,560
which is you know, holy shit. I had no idea

1462
01:29:38,000 --> 01:29:41,479
it made. It made like number fifty four on USA Today.

1463
01:29:41,920 --> 01:29:44,039
Remember USA Today? Remember when I used to go to

1464
01:29:44,079 --> 01:29:47,119
the hotel, the Railroad hotels, and they always have a

1465
01:29:47,159 --> 01:29:50,439
free copy of USA Today. And every year it's like

1466
01:29:50,520 --> 01:29:53,960
the number of pages in each you know, the number

1467
01:29:54,000 --> 01:29:57,720
of total pages in each episode. Got there's a big

1468
01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:02,119
crab spider on me, beautiful Got shorter like that, you

1469
01:30:02,119 --> 01:30:05,720
could just tell the newspapers where nobody was reading newspapers.

1470
01:30:06,199 --> 01:30:07,720
I remember at a time when you used to have

1471
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:11,119
to go in to Starbucks and shoplift the New York Times. Right,

1472
01:30:11,600 --> 01:30:13,439
you go in there, you sit down and use the bathroom,

1473
01:30:13,760 --> 01:30:15,560
pick up a New York Times exactly, you're just gonna

1474
01:30:15,600 --> 01:30:17,399
read it and you just, you know, slip off with it.

1475
01:30:17,800 --> 01:30:20,640
That was a long time ago. I don't steal New

1476
01:30:20,720 --> 01:30:23,239
York Times from Starbucks anymore because there's no New York

1477
01:30:23,279 --> 01:30:29,000
Times left to steal. It's all it's all online. But uh,

1478
01:30:29,039 --> 01:30:31,119
and everybody gets their news from social media now. But yeah,

1479
01:30:31,159 --> 01:30:33,960
so uh but yeah, concrete Bondie number seven. So if

1480
01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:36,359
you haven't got it yet, please get it. Please get it,

1481
01:30:36,800 --> 01:30:38,319
even if you're just gonna use it to beat your

1482
01:30:38,359 --> 01:30:42,039
friend or you know, you want to give it to somebody.

1483
01:30:43,119 --> 01:30:45,279
I don't I get royalties from it. It's but it's

1484
01:30:45,279 --> 01:30:47,199
not about that. It's just get the message out there, man,

1485
01:30:47,359 --> 01:30:50,000
Get the message. I think it's an important message. If

1486
01:30:50,039 --> 01:30:52,960
you already know a lot about botany and biogeography and

1487
01:30:52,960 --> 01:30:56,159
plant spciation and evolution, all that shit, natural selection, it's

1488
01:30:56,199 --> 01:31:01,520
not going to be enlightening for you. It's mostly to really, uh,

1489
01:31:01,880 --> 01:31:03,640
get more people. I guess I wrote it for an

1490
01:31:03,640 --> 01:31:07,199
audience of people who just have no clue about botany.

1491
01:31:07,239 --> 01:31:09,960
But you know they're not they're not sniffing on it yet,

1492
01:31:09,960 --> 01:31:14,319
but they're curious, right, and uh and really just I

1493
01:31:14,479 --> 01:31:18,039
like tying the horticultural atrocities and the way that most

1494
01:31:18,119 --> 01:31:21,720
of landscaped America looks to the mental health crisis, because

1495
01:31:21,760 --> 01:31:24,399
I think it really they the two go hand in hand. Man.

1496
01:31:25,279 --> 01:31:27,720
I did an interview on some radio station in Calgary

1497
01:31:27,760 --> 01:31:30,600
today and they were asking me about that, you know,

1498
01:31:30,680 --> 01:31:33,479
and it's like, uh, you know, all you gotta do

1499
01:31:33,600 --> 01:31:36,079
is is mention it to me. And it's like you

1500
01:31:36,199 --> 01:31:40,279
let you let the give me and give me an

1501
01:31:40,399 --> 01:31:42,880
end to run my mouth. And suddenly I won't shut up.

1502
01:31:42,880 --> 01:31:44,800
I just keep talking about it. I got a whole,

1503
01:31:45,520 --> 01:31:49,159
a whole uh riot act. I can read about, uh

1504
01:31:49,319 --> 01:31:52,000
you know, the mini golf course landscaping and the hedge

1505
01:31:52,079 --> 01:31:55,680
boogain villas and the hedge box woods and Emerald Green

1506
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:59,680
Arborvid's and and the fucking lawn especially right. But I

1507
01:31:59,680 --> 01:32:02,479
always to make the distinction like there's lawn has a purpose,

1508
01:32:02,520 --> 01:32:04,640
movie night in the park, maybe spot to go kick

1509
01:32:04,640 --> 01:32:06,600
a soccer ball around or with the shit. But it's

1510
01:32:06,640 --> 01:32:08,479
just the fact that it's been normalized. And then why

1511
01:32:08,520 --> 01:32:11,399
are we surrounding our infrastructure with mode turf grass right

1512
01:32:11,760 --> 01:32:14,119
edges of retention ponds that should all be native plants.

1513
01:32:14,239 --> 01:32:18,239
Edges of bleak strip malls, it should all be native plants, perennials,

1514
01:32:18,600 --> 01:32:24,239
native trees, et cetera. But anyway, I'm speaking on August

1515
01:32:24,319 --> 01:32:27,600
twenty No, what is April twenty third, Thursday, April twenty third,

1516
01:32:27,600 --> 01:32:29,640
at Keita Maza Lan. I'll be doing a plant i

1517
01:32:29,720 --> 01:32:32,800
D Class, then a book signing. We're going on tour

1518
01:32:33,560 --> 01:32:39,319
through the Southwest. I think we're doing El Paso, El Paso,

1519
01:32:39,520 --> 01:32:43,800
through Tucson, Phoenix, maybe someplace in southern New Mexico. Maybe

1520
01:32:43,840 --> 01:32:47,159
need a venue in southern New Mexico, still, La San Diego,

1521
01:32:47,800 --> 01:32:51,119
et cetera. In late May, early June, we're playing at

1522
01:32:51,119 --> 01:32:55,319
the Troubadour in La and it'll be nice. It'll be

1523
01:32:55,359 --> 01:32:57,840
a nice fucking you know. You come out, you can

1524
01:32:58,079 --> 01:33:02,439
listen to me rant about shit, you know, attack modern horticulture.

1525
01:33:02,600 --> 01:33:04,399
I'm going to be showing a bunch of cool plants

1526
01:33:04,399 --> 01:33:06,439
from all over the world to some of my favorites,

1527
01:33:06,840 --> 01:33:10,800
including Bobbyana, the genus of iris in South Africa that

1528
01:33:10,840 --> 01:33:13,119
makes its leaves look like they've been munch done already

1529
01:33:13,359 --> 01:33:16,399
as a means of as a strategy of avoiding or bivery,

1530
01:33:17,479 --> 01:33:21,039
and and then I'm working on a third book, a

1531
01:33:21,079 --> 01:33:25,079
photo book, a coffee table book just from plants, just

1532
01:33:25,199 --> 01:33:28,119
of plants from all over the world as well, which

1533
01:33:28,119 --> 01:33:29,840
has been a few years in the making. I originally

1534
01:33:29,880 --> 01:33:31,920
had it with a different publisher, but they were flakes

1535
01:33:31,960 --> 01:33:36,239
and didn't you know, they were just incompetent, And there

1536
01:33:36,319 --> 01:33:38,239
was a different publisher than the publisher that I used

1537
01:33:38,279 --> 01:33:41,880
for Concrete Botany, and so finally I just once Concrete

1538
01:33:41,880 --> 01:33:44,279
Botany went off, Oh cool, soalth theory b then I

1539
01:33:44,319 --> 01:33:46,880
approached that publisher said hey, you guys want to do

1540
01:33:46,920 --> 01:33:50,840
this book too, and they said yes, So so I

1541
01:33:51,000 --> 01:33:52,640
get to throw They just gotta throw a bunch of

1542
01:33:52,640 --> 01:33:54,920
photos on end design and do some quick write ups.

1543
01:33:54,920 --> 01:33:56,640
It should be really good, though. I'm looking forward to it.

1544
01:33:56,640 --> 01:33:58,439
It's going to be really nice. There's some really cool

1545
01:33:58,439 --> 01:34:03,199
plants in there, really cool shit, and uh yeah, that's it,

1546
01:34:03,479 --> 01:34:04,359
so uh what else?

1547
01:34:04,399 --> 01:34:04,640
Speaker 2: In all?

1548
01:34:04,680 --> 01:34:07,399
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be speaking at the Kinivor's Plant Society too

1549
01:34:07,920 --> 01:34:09,960
in May. I'll be in North Carolina, supposed to be

1550
01:34:10,000 --> 01:34:11,600
there for a week. I might cut it short though,

1551
01:34:12,439 --> 01:34:17,079
because my daughter is u graduating from kindergarten. I've never

1552
01:34:17,119 --> 01:34:19,760
heard that before graduating from kindergarten. I guess they do

1553
01:34:19,800 --> 01:34:23,039
that down here. It's like a big deal. It's you know,

1554
01:34:23,119 --> 01:34:26,119
we got the bar pretty low down here in South Texas. Right, Yeah,

1555
01:34:26,159 --> 01:34:28,439
you made it through kindergarten. Good job. We'll get your

1556
01:34:28,439 --> 01:34:31,279
photo and or it could be it's a nice way

1557
01:34:31,319 --> 01:34:33,800
for the school to fleece the you know, they make

1558
01:34:33,840 --> 01:34:35,960
a big, a big deal out of it. And then

1559
01:34:35,960 --> 01:34:39,199
they can sell gowns. You know, even though she's only six,

1560
01:34:39,520 --> 01:34:42,479
they could sell gowns. They could sell photos. You know,

1561
01:34:42,560 --> 01:34:44,680
it's a nice way to fleece the parents. And then

1562
01:34:44,720 --> 01:34:46,159
you know, if you don't want to buy one way,

1563
01:34:46,159 --> 01:34:48,039
you don't. You don't care about your kid. You don't

1564
01:34:48,079 --> 01:34:50,600
want to You don't want to commemorate this moment, right,

1565
01:34:50,600 --> 01:34:53,119
don't you want to commemorate the moment buy this fifty

1566
01:34:53,159 --> 01:34:58,640
six dollars portrait of your your kid graduating kindergarten. Anyway?

1567
01:34:59,560 --> 01:35:02,319
H but yeah, god damn, I hope we get more rain.

1568
01:35:02,560 --> 01:35:04,960
Oh it's so nice here man, this little semi legal

1569
01:35:04,960 --> 01:35:07,600
garden that we set up, right and my friend Louise

1570
01:35:07,640 --> 01:35:10,239
started it and then I approached them and then we

1571
01:35:10,279 --> 01:35:11,760
just I was like, hey, we could add onto this.

1572
01:35:11,800 --> 01:35:13,680
We just started adding on to it now. It's nice.

1573
01:35:13,680 --> 01:35:17,319
It's such a nice little oasis in the middle of

1574
01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:22,880
urban sprawl. So you could do this too. Everybody should

1575
01:35:22,920 --> 01:35:24,680
do this right, just start reaching out. You just got

1576
01:35:24,680 --> 01:35:26,159
to get more shit in the ground, more natives in

1577
01:35:26,199 --> 01:35:29,279
the ground. Anyway, Uh, I think that's all I got.

1578
01:35:29,319 --> 01:35:33,000
So there'll also be more episodes of spiritually depraved than

1579
01:35:33,039 --> 01:35:35,720
misery inducing landscapes coming up. If you've got a recommendation

1580
01:35:35,840 --> 01:35:39,800
somewhere for me of a really bleak landscaping job or

1581
01:35:39,840 --> 01:35:42,279
strip mall hell, you can email it to me. Just

1582
01:35:42,319 --> 01:35:44,720
try to keep the email short. And I have not

1583
01:35:44,760 --> 01:35:46,560
been responding to a lot of emails lately. It's just

1584
01:35:46,600 --> 01:35:48,800
too overwhelming. I just don't want to look at the

1585
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:51,359
email inbox. But if you got something good sends me anyway,

1586
01:35:51,399 --> 01:35:53,039
that's all gotta have. Ad they go function it bike.

1587
01:36:04,359 --> 01:36:15,920
Speaker 5: Trust to imagine that.

1588
01:36:17,720 --> 01:36:34,479
Speaker 1: My post beds las.

1589
01:36:47,159 --> 01:36:48,600
Speaker 5: Indeed,