As of now the Costa Rica tour that I am planning with Alan Rockefeller and Mandie Quark is happening July 8th through the 16th. The total cost will be $2,500 and will include food transportation and lodging... all you have to do is fly your own ass down there into San Jose.
We will be spending the entire time in the high elevation Montan...
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ou4XzxffKTK5h11fA
I'm still getting around to putting identifications on all the photos but if you're curious about any of the plants simply comment on the photo and I will ID it for you.2025-05-05 01:15:12 +0000 UTC View Post
The thin-soiled limestone glade habitats of Northeastern Alabama are home to some of the coolest and rarest plants in the Southeast, but two centuries of fire suppression has put the continued existence of many of them in danger. In this episode we meet up with Kyle Lybarger of 2025-04-29 15:39:25 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode we check out dry tropical forests as well as the karstic limestone outcroppings within them that are home to the drought tolerant plants like Euphorbia schlechtendalii, Marshallocereus aragonii, and Agave wercklei. 3 different species of monkeys appear in this video as well as a white nosed Coati.
2025-04-24 03:17:45 +0000 UTC View PostIf you're in Atlanta I'm here and I'll be at Stone Mountain tonight at 5 pm doing a plant walk/shoot-the-shit session in the parking lot.
2025-04-22 14:24:13 +0000 UTC View Post
In this video we catch Star Cactus Blooming ( Astrophytum asterias) and see a massive old growth Peyote at Thornscrub Sanctuary.
In the second part to our ascent up the Talamanca Range of Costa Rica, we check out the plants growitat 10,000' in the mountains of Central America, culminating in the strange bromeliad and tree fern bogs where Puya dasylirioides grows...
2025-04-17 02:59:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Agave wercklei is endemic to Costa Rica, growing on calcareous shale In the northwest part of the country in the province of Guanacaste. The habitat here somewhat resembles similar habitat of the dry tropical forests of southern Mexico, and indeed many of the same species occur here, but this Agave only grows within the geopolitical boundaries o...
2025-04-13 16:44:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Part 1 in a two-part video featuring The climb from Mid elevations to high elevations in Costa Rican Cloud forest, and all the species and habitats in between...
2025-04-12 16:16:59 +0000 UTC View PostAd-Free episode of the podcast featuring a 2.5 hour podcast rant about plants in the neotropics, including the lowland dry forests, the montane oak forests, and the Páramo.
2025-04-11 22:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
In Central Chile grows a giant species in a genus more well known in the United States for being small herbs or herbaceous perennials... this is Lobelia excelsa.
other species listed include
Retanilla trinervia (Rhamnaceae)
Baccharis paniculata
Baccharis linearis (Asteraceae)
Lithraea caustica (Anacardiaceae)
Maytenus boa...
The genus Aristolochia contains over 500 species, most of which occur at tropical latitudes around the world. Thus episode focuses mainly on 4 species from the new world tropics, primarily:
Aristolochia ringens,
Aristolochia leuconeura,
Aristolochia gigantea,
& Aristolochia grandiflora.
All these flowers have their sexua...
Tabernanthe iboga is one of many ethnobotanically important plants I photographed today at the Ark Vivero in Costa Rica. It is an intense psychedelic for curing opiate Addiction and PTSD. If you've ever talked to someone who's done it it's common for them start tearing up a bit when they recount their experience. Like any healing and strong psyc...
2025-04-02 23:26:50 +0000 UTC View PostMike Powell is curator of the Sul Ross Herbarium in Texas and has spent 60 years studying the plants of the region. In this conversation we talk about describing new species, gypsum endemics in the Chihuahua Desert, Chromosome counting, Sky Islands on the Chisos and Davis Mountains, Increasing Droughts, the importance of herbaria, and the new sp...
2025-03-21 18:33:10 +0000 UTC View PostDeb Manley is a naturalist and long-distance hiker who in March 2024 discovered a plant species that was entirely new to science: Ovicula biradiata (Sunflower Family - Asteraceae).
In this episode of Crime Pays we talk about the discovery, the unique flora of the Big Bend region, limestone deserts, the phenomenon of Sky Islands and mo...
2025-03-20 17:39:00 +0000 UTC View PostDr. Lynn Clark studies neotropical bamboos - bamboos from the Americas - specifically the genus Chusquea, which is epically diverse in South America, from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil to the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, to Western Mexico, all the way down to the temperate rainforests of Southern Chile. In this episode we talk ab...
2025-03-18 16:58:16 +0000 UTC View PostBruce Shoemaker is a researcher on natural resource conflict issues and
author of the book "Dead in the Water", about hydropower projects and extractive predatory capitalism in Southeast Asia.
In this podcast we talk about turning monoculturres of pine plantations back into biodiverse forest in Northern California, the importance of...
Below is an excerpt from the book I'm currently finishing (and painstakingly editing), Concrete & Botany. It encompasses, human relationships with plant life, horticultural atrocities, invasive species, lawn-killing and more. The book will discuss plant speciation, biogeography, natural selection and evolution, ecological checks-an...
2025-03-13 21:04:41 +0000 UTC View PostIn this episode we talk about why the word "nature" sucks; how to use the living world to avoid focusing on doom and idiocracy; why aimlessly walking along power line easements, irrigation ditches and railroad tracks in order to look at "weeds" is good for your health; an Australian orchid (Rhizanthella gardneri) that doesn't photo...
2025-03-08 18:07:18 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode we talk with Leo Mercado of Morningstar Conservancy, an Arizona-based peyote conservation and propagation organization formed by members of the Native American Church concerned with the increasingly diminishing wild popuations of Peyote, a cactus species native to South Texas and Northern Mexico. We talk about the dwind...
In this video - a follow-up to the previous episode featuring Andean Condors and Mountains of Antuco, Chile - we see how the high dry cold elevations of the Andes mountains of Southern Chile affect the plant life, producing evolutionary forms such as leaf hairs and short squat rosettes of leaves.
Plants featured in this episode include :<...
Rants about museums in Chicago, the hall of botany at the field museum, drop-in sinks, Euglossine bees, the genus Gnetum, getting the cops called on you at Chicago Botanical Gardens, the library at said institution, and more.
2025-03-05 05:39:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Rants about the New Asteraceae species discovered at Big Bend National Park, Ovicula biradiata, as well as an exploration of a few species of Neotropical Palms, potential musical choices for waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay and Divine Retribution against America in the form of audible torture, vandalizing crepe myrtles and Bradford Pears, ...
2025-02-26 18:39:46 +0000 UTC View Post
A 2 hour rant about the upper Amazon, the Paramo, ant symbiosis, Ilex guayusa, ethnobotany at the fruit market, giant neotropical bamboos, and much more.
In this episode we check out the Coastal Old Growth Araucaria forests including the largest specimen known to date, the "Milenario".
2025-02-17 00:19:26 +0000 UTC View Post
This will probably only interest some of you but this is a very helpful tool for creating a list of plants you have observed, or that someone else observed, In a given boundary locations such as county state or country. You can then sort the information according to species and family or whatever other data is applicable.
For me this is ...
Attached is a google photos album highlighting the Mesmerizing High Altitude Plant Habitat known as Páramo, as well as some ethnobotany from the lower elevations (4,000 meters).
There will be five or six more 300-photo albums as I get the time to update.
I have not had time to edit captions yet so if you're curious about somethi...
