Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

Why do some plants grow where they do? How can geology cause new plant species to evolve? Why are some plants pollinated by flies, some by bats, some by birds, and others by bees? How does a plant evolve to look like a rock? How can destroying lawns soothe the soul? This is a show about plants and plant habitat through the lens of natural selection and ecology, with a side of neurotic ranting, light humor, occasional profanity, & the perpetual search for the filthiest taqueria bathroom.

Episodes

Estado de Hidalgo Rants

December 13, 2025 • 76 mins
Rants about the plant life of the state of Hidalgo Mexico, including but not limited to Cephalocereus senilis, Fouquieria fasciculata, Fouquieria purpusii, Magnolia scheidiana, obsidian piles, and more. 

All episodes of The Crime Pace podcast are available for ad-free listening on the Patreon at : https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Mexico Plants Checklist : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a5GcJ39ysO_n2XbsazLZeyF9H1wDi4...
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San Luis Potosí Rants

December 4, 2025 • 72 mins
In this episode we rant about cacti that grow in ephemeral lagoons, 1500 year old Montezuma Cypresses, cryptic cacti that grow in salty mud basins, Mexican Jays dispersing weeping pinion pine seeds, a fern that grows out of marble, how the summer-wet/winter-dry habit affects some carnivorous plant forms, and more...

Reminder that episodes of this podcast are available ad-free on the Crime Pays Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimepaysbut...
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Climate Town with Rollie Williams

November 24, 2025 • 97 mins
Ad-Free episodes of the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't podcast are available on the Patreon at
www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Rollie Williams is host of the youtube series "Climate Town". In this episode, we talk about "supplying demand" Capitalism, the Oil Lobby, why certain interests are just so dang good at propaganda, how the CEOs became the heroes and the scientists became the bad guys, palm oil plantations, ethanol, go...
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Please Don't "Save the (honey)Bees"

November 15, 2025 • 113 mins
Reed Booth and his assistant Hosh are killer bee exterminators based out of Bisbee, Arizona. In this episode we talk about the ferocity of the scutellata hybrid (aka "killer bees"), the fact that this hybrid doesn't occur in nature ANYWHERE, why most feral honeybee colonies end up being dominated or taken over by the scutellata hybrids, the reductions in native bee and plant biodiversity that the presence of both feral and domestic...
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Native Bee Diversity w/ Krystle Hickman

November 11, 2025 • 131 mins
Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Patreon at : www.patreon.com/Crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt

Krystle Hickman is a biologist, native bee researcher, and conservationist from Los Angeles, California and author of the book "The ABCs of California's Native Bees". In this 2-hour conversation we talk about how to identify bees to genus, different groups of native bees (IE longhorn bees, cactus bees, leaf cutter bees, sweat b...
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Black Forager : On Connecting with the Living World

November 6, 2025 • 144 mins
A 2 hour conversation with Alexis Nicole Nelson aka Black Forager about connecting with the living world, ethnobotany, lawn-killing, native plants, hopefulness and humility, using native plants for fibers, and a sh*t ton more.

Full episodes of the Crime Pays Podcast can be listened to ad-free on the Patreon at:
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt
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Paleoforaging - The Ethnobotany of Some Central Texas Plants w/ Cyrus Harp

October 30, 2025 • 139 mins
Cyrus Harp is an ethnobotanist, ethnobiologist and author based out of Cetral Texas. In this episode we talk about a number of different plant species, chipping chert, using Agave & Yucca for fiber, Agarita (Berberis trifoliolata) as dye, Mescal Beans and the history of pre-European human settlement and botany in Texas.
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How to Love a Forest - with Ethan Tapper

October 27, 2025 • 103 mins
 Ethan Tapper is a forester, author and ecologist out of Vermont, USA. He advocates for a practice called "Ecological Forestry", as opposed to the short-term-gain/long-term-loss management style that has seemingly dominated the lumber industry for decades (centuries). He is the author of a book called "How to Love a Forest", released on Broadleaf Press in September 2024. In this conversation we talk about the Northeast Woodlands, h...
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Florida Rants

October 23, 2025 • 118 mins
*Rants about the fire-dependent sand scrub of Central Florida, some of the rarest, most unique and underappreciated plants of the world. The plant community here occurs in nutrient-poor, fire dependent sands that were the beachfront 2 million years ago. These plants evolved in a region that gets upwards of 60 in of rain of year but has a pronounced dry season between November and May. 

Even more astonishing is that so many of these ...
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KYL LIVE @ the Hideout

October 3, 2025 • 126 mins
A live show originally recorded at The Hideout in Chicago on September 13th 2025. First 4 minutes got cut off accidentally by the sound guy, who otherwise did a great job (the sd card f*cked up, it wasn't his fault). On that note, I mistakenly refer to Artemisia ludoviciana when I meant Artemisia vulgaris. 

full episodes of this podcast are available ad free on the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt
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KYL Tour Rants 25

September 27, 2025 • 93 mins
Rants about KILL YOUR LAWN tour in the Midwest, River Geography, Hemp Farms in Wisconsin, Prairies, Bison, upset affluent suburban ladies in St Paul, horticultural atrocities, Lincoln vs Omaha Nebraska, Feral Paht and more.

Thanks to the all the venues that put us up and thanks to everyone who came out for the shows/presentations in Milwaukee, St Paul, Omaha, Lincoln, Kansas City, Omaha, Lincoln and the Quad Cities.

As Always, Ad-Fre...
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Chicago Coyotes, Prairie Psychedelia, Landscape Architects

September 20, 2025 • 86 mins
Ad-Free episodes of the podcast are available on the Patreon at www.patreon/crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt
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Trouble in the Food Forest

September 5, 2025 • 42 mins
Why is there such a strong correlation between invasion biology denial, anthropocentrism, ecological illiteracy and permaculture? How can permaculture move forward while at the same time acknowledging the functionality of native plant ecosystems and why the designation of "native" is not some frivolous, arbitrary, or puritanical designation? In this 40 minute conversation between myself and Lilly Anderson-Messec we talk about what ...
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"Spiritual Remedies of Nuevo León"

September 3, 2025 • 134 mins
In this episode (after a 30 minute societal rant) we talk about Dioon edule and cycads of the foothills of the Sierra Madre, why hemiparasitic members of the paintbrush family frequently have red leaves, Mexican Oak Diversity, Tillandsia usneoides in Oak woodlands, Calochortus marcellae, Malacomeles denticulata ecotypes, why Crotalus morulus (Tamaulipan Rock Rattlesnake) possibly one of the coolest members of the genus

Ad-Free Episo...
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Adam Haritan from Learn Your Land

August 26, 2025 • 120 mins
This episode is a conversation with Adam Haritan from the youtube channel Learn Your Land, which covres a diverse variety of topics related to the ecology of Eastern North American Forests - Fungi, Plants, Insects, & more. In this episode we talk about how fire suppression has caused an explosion in tick populations, along with a multitude of other factors. We also discuss medicinal mushrooms of Eastern North America, surviving...
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Rants about Compost Sh*tting, Plant Metabolism, Compensation Point, Etc

August 20, 2025 • 129 mins
Ad-Free episodes of the CPBBD podcast are available on the patreon at 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Today's episode consists of rants about compensation point, idiotic spelling mistakes, C3 and C4 photosynthesis, why nighttime temperatures prevent growing some plants in some areas, public land grab in Florida by sleazebag developers embedded in state government, Kill Your Lawn Tour 2025,  calcareous shale exposure...
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Colorado Springs Southwards

August 12, 2025 • 96 mins
Rants about Green Tea, Lactose Intolerance, mycoheterotrophic plants in New Mexico, Colorado Springs Shale Exposures, Native Plant Takeovers of municipal landscaping greenhouses, Rock Sage, 300 million year old limestone, and more.

Ad-Free Episodes of the podcast are available for 5 bucks a month on the patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

To pre-order the book Concrete Botany, visit https://geni.us/ConcreteB...
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I 10 Ramblings to New Mexico

August 2, 2025 • 98 mins
Disjointed Rants about New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains, Mormons, the origins of Ivermectin, Rat-Trap Pitcher plants and Nepenthes hybrids, and more.

All episodes of the Crime Pays podcast are available ad-free on the crime pays patreon at : 
https://www.patreon.com/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

For merch, bonfire store is at : 
https://www.bonfire.com/store/crime-pays-but-botany-doesnt/
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Neotropical Oak Forests & Bush-Checking Becky

July 25, 2025 • 107 mins
In this episode we rant about Neotropical High-elevation Oak forests of Central America, what the hell introgression is (swapping genes between two species through hybridization and back-crossing to potentially create a new species, though sometimes it just introduces adaptive traits into existing species), the checking of a racist Becky into a bush by a fed-up member of the populace, the neotropical parasitic plant Corynaea crass ...
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Sashaying Around West Texas Sky Islands

July 5, 2025 • 88 mins
Rants about Davis Mountains fungi, Ponderosa Pine Death from drought, torrential Texas rains, West Texas alcoholics, Mandevilla hypoleuca, Echeveria strictiflora, Growing Madrones, American Smoke Trees in Austin, Madrones in San Antonio, Dystopia and more....
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