The New Plant Species Discovered in a National Park

<v Speaker 1>Okay, welcome to the Crime Pays but Bonnie doesn't podcast.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sitting here with Deb Manley, who is the discoverer
<v Speaker 1>of the recently described species in the sunflower family as
<v Speaker 1>the racy from West Texas that was discovered in Big
<v Speaker 1>Bend National Park Ovicula by Radiata. And to be honest
<v Speaker 1>that you, I was already you were already on my radar.
<v Speaker 1>Your name was already on my radar before you discovered
<v Speaker 1>the thing. I had messaged you before because I had
<v Speaker 1>seen you on I Naturalist observing all kinds of cool stuff,
<v Speaker 1>you know, rarest stuff and you know, throughout the park,
<v Speaker 1>and then I would see the location and I'd be.
<v Speaker 2>Like, what the fuck is she doing out there? Like
<v Speaker 2>what is she doing?
<v Speaker 1>That's you know, And I was like, this lady's a badass.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder you know, she's paying attention, she's got an
<v Speaker 1>eye for things, She's paying attention to things that probably
<v Speaker 1>not a lot of people are. And so I already,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I already knew about you. And then when
<v Speaker 1>I heard that you had discovered what was thought to
<v Speaker 1>be a new species, I was kind of like, of
<v Speaker 1>course she has, so Welcome to the podcast.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for being down to come.
<v Speaker 3>Thanks Joey.
<v Speaker 1>So what yeah, so tell us all, what how did
<v Speaker 1>you end up out there? Oh, you got to just
<v Speaker 1>come a little bit closer to the mic.
<v Speaker 2>Let me put this close. So how did you end
<v Speaker 2>up out there? What were you doing?
<v Speaker 1>I mean you you are basically doing plant surveys with Big.
<v Speaker 3>Bend, right, I've been doing those for quite a while.
<v Speaker 3>That particular day, my friend Kathy and I Kathy Hoyight,
<v Speaker 3>she's a park ranger. We were just hiking to one
<v Speaker 3>of the canyons in the north part of the park.
<v Speaker 3>And when we hike together, we usually go pretty slow
<v Speaker 3>because we're both into looking at whatever's going.
<v Speaker 2>On in the botanist pace.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yes, which annoys the heck out of a lot
<v Speaker 3>of people, but I don't hike with them, so we're,
<v Speaker 3>you know, just mosing along and we found, uh, found
<v Speaker 3>this plant and not much going on that day botany wise,
<v Speaker 3>A couple of cactus might have been going off.
<v Speaker 1>This is March March twenty four, last year, twenty twenty four.
<v Speaker 2>That's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so so barely a year this thing's been known to.
<v Speaker 3>Science, right, Yeah, we found it and the team published
<v Speaker 3>it within a year, but yeah, we found the plants,
<v Speaker 3>started taking photos. I'm I could tell it was an aster,
<v Speaker 3>but I had never seen it before. But doesn't mean
<v Speaker 3>much to me because there's a lot of plants in
<v Speaker 3>the park. I think, like thirteen hundred species. I've seen
<v Speaker 3>a lot of them, but there's some that just you
<v Speaker 3>don't see very often. So I just figured this was
<v Speaker 3>going to give me a hard time with the keys,
<v Speaker 3>because I'm not that great with the aster keys. So
<v Speaker 3>we took pictures, did our hike, and I came back
<v Speaker 3>and you know, started started working through the keys, Mike
<v Speaker 3>Powe's book obviously, and looking I naturalists looking at sign
<v Speaker 3>it and not seeing anything. So I started, you know,
<v Speaker 3>sending the photo out to botanists that I knew, and
<v Speaker 3>nobody was really saying anything. Put it on I naturalists
<v Speaker 3>and people were you know saying, yeah, that's kind of unique,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, getting that kind of vibe from it.
<v Speaker 3>So finally I was like, well, I gotta send it
<v Speaker 3>to Mike doctor Poule, which I didn't want to do
<v Speaker 3>right away because it was like, man, if this is
<v Speaker 3>something obvious, I don't want him to you know, get
<v Speaker 3>your head out, dev But yeah, it turns out he
<v Speaker 3>was pretty excited about it, and you know, I wanted
<v Speaker 3>wanted a specimen, right.
<v Speaker 1>So he saw it and he was yeah, it was
<v Speaker 1>I mean I could just imagine, as he's a friend
<v Speaker 1>of mine, I could just imagine being like, well, god,
<v Speaker 1>I've never I don't know what that could be.
<v Speaker 2>You know, just kind of like.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he knew pretty quick, and you know, he he
<v Speaker 3>didn't come right out and say, you know, this is
<v Speaker 3>a new species. You know, he said, you know, it
<v Speaker 3>might be a new species. You know, he had some
<v Speaker 3>people to check with and you know, friends in Mexico
<v Speaker 3>and you know, botanists in other parts of the country
<v Speaker 3>that he wanted to check with before he you know,
<v Speaker 3>committed to it. But you know, he was pretty certain
<v Speaker 3>right off the bat. So that that was That was
<v Speaker 3>when it started getting a little excited.
<v Speaker 1>And soon a lot of people were talking about this
<v Speaker 1>because and also it looks.
<v Speaker 2>Really unique too. Yeah, flowers look unique.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it doesn't look unique if it's during the dry season.
<v Speaker 1>This is an annual so it just grows for a
<v Speaker 1>few months and then it's gone and the only place
<v Speaker 1>it's living is in seed, forming a seed bank, and
<v Speaker 1>this habitat. But when it flowers, it's totally unique. What
<v Speaker 1>does it look like when it's going off? Like when
<v Speaker 1>the flowers are blooming, it's.
<v Speaker 3>Really pretty, but you've got to get on your hands
<v Speaker 3>and knees to admire it because it's so small, the
<v Speaker 3>white ray flowers with those maroon nerves in it. It's
<v Speaker 3>just it's pretty striking.
<v Speaker 1>Like candy cane striped striations. But then it's only got
<v Speaker 1>two rays.
<v Speaker 3>Two sometimes three that we've seen. I mean, we don't
<v Speaker 3>know what it's capable of because we had such a
<v Speaker 3>short one to observe it.
<v Speaker 2>It's so weird looking.
<v Speaker 1>So you've got this like like what's like essentially a
<v Speaker 1>mini sunflower head with like ten floor its per head,
<v Speaker 1>ten tiny flowers per head, just structure the sunflower pamily.
<v Speaker 1>And then you've got but each capitulum, each head has
<v Speaker 1>these two really elongated rays coming out, what you know,
<v Speaker 1>people who don't know the sun flower pamiy might call
<v Speaker 1>pedals coming out, and they've got these red stripes on them.
<v Speaker 1>And then the whole thing is wooly right, it's all
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Powell's got a plant that he grew from
<v Speaker 1>seed and hed in your bar the other day and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, oh, I hate to He was taking branches
<v Speaker 1>for to do genomics on it. They're going to sequence
<v Speaker 1>the whole genome. And he was like, I hate to
<v Speaker 1>hurt my wooly, you know, I hate to mutilate it.
<v Speaker 1>But but yeah, I mean it's it's so yeah. Well,
<v Speaker 1>if you know the plants there and you see this thing,
<v Speaker 1>you're like, what the hell is this? This is like,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's like that moment, what was it? The
<v Speaker 1>Wollemie Pine in Australia outside of Sydney in the Blue Mountains,
<v Speaker 1>some hikers got David Noble was walking around in this
<v Speaker 1>remote area and notice these, you know, one hundred foot
<v Speaker 1>tall trees. Instead these are really bizarre. They look like
<v Speaker 1>some sort.
<v Speaker 2>Of weird fern.
<v Speaker 1>But the fern fronds are feel like they're made out
<v Speaker 1>of plastic and they're these huge you know, they've got
<v Speaker 1>bark that looks like it's like cocoa pebbles, like you know,
<v Speaker 1>the horrible children's cereal, which I refuse to ever allow
<v Speaker 1>my daughter to eat, no offense to her, but she
<v Speaker 1>certainly asked. And then it's got these weird cones and
<v Speaker 1>so it was, you know, this was like this was
<v Speaker 1>like ninety two that he discovered this.
<v Speaker 2>But this is like the same thing.
<v Speaker 1>You know, hiker who's got some botanical awareness. I mean
<v Speaker 1>you've got a lot, you're a botanist, but but notices
<v Speaker 1>this thing and it turns out to be brand new
<v Speaker 1>to science.
<v Speaker 2>It's totally exciting.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy, and like, right, international park, that's wild. And
<v Speaker 1>then now it seems how many populations are there. It
<v Speaker 1>seems like there might be a broader distribution of this species.
<v Speaker 3>Now, yeah, I think you're leading to the recent posting
<v Speaker 3>on finacialists of the one do we say this town?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you could on the only other claim that Fame
<v Speaker 1>Sanderson has an old no country for old men. But
<v Speaker 1>I think it's yeah, it's fine. And that might even
<v Speaker 1>be roadside. It might be private land, we don't know.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so that's interesting that you know, immediately the range
<v Speaker 3>got expanded, you know, eighty miles, whereas before we thought
<v Speaker 3>it was confined. You know, we've got like maybe one
<v Speaker 3>mile circle at where we found in the park.
<v Speaker 2>So and so, what what does the habitat look like? Here?
<v Speaker 1>These are limestone deserts basically.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, limestone desert, pavement whatever you call it. Pretty barren.
<v Speaker 3>You know, the occasional creosot shrub.
<v Speaker 2>Aerocarpus aerocarpus.
<v Speaker 3>Mirapa sensus is out there. They're you know, just some
<v Speaker 3>of the typical plants you would expect on that type
<v Speaker 3>of limestone surface, but.
<v Speaker 1>Really barren, like white sub straight yeah. Yeah, And so
<v Speaker 1>what were you what were you guys doing? You were
<v Speaker 1>hiking out to it? First off, I wanted your job.
<v Speaker 1>Sounds amazing. So you how did you land this because
<v Speaker 1>you're where are you from originally? And how did you
<v Speaker 1>end up in West Texas?
<v Speaker 3>I used to live in Alito, Texas. Came out to
<v Speaker 3>Big Ben I think probably in twenty fifteen with some friends.
<v Speaker 3>I'm embarrassed to say I've been in Texas for over
<v Speaker 3>fifty years and had never been out there, and just
<v Speaker 3>fell in love with the place and started talking to
<v Speaker 3>some volunteers. It's like, well, you know, how can I
<v Speaker 3>stay out here longer? Because the park hast like this
<v Speaker 3>two week maximum?
<v Speaker 2>Oh really, Like, well.
<v Speaker 3>You can volunteer, And I was like, I don't know
<v Speaker 3>if I want to do that. So talked myself into
<v Speaker 3>it and was actually a campground host in the basin
<v Speaker 3>which I am not suited for.
<v Speaker 2>Oh god, so that would Yeah, you got to deal
<v Speaker 2>with some odd types probably, and just like play cop
<v Speaker 2>to stupid behavior.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like you're the babysitter and these are all adults.
<v Speaker 3>So I wound up meeting the park botanist at the time,
<v Speaker 3>Joe Sarotnik, and he was looking for people to help
<v Speaker 3>him with some agave bloom surveys. So I got to
<v Speaker 3>do that with him, talked my way into volunteering under him,
<v Speaker 3>and unfortunately he left shortly after I got there. So
<v Speaker 3>I was tucked under Raymond Skyles. He was the wildlife
<v Speaker 3>biologist and did wildlife stuff and he was he knew
<v Speaker 3>I like plants, so he would throw plant projects at me.
<v Speaker 3>We surveyed the aspen populations, which was that was a
<v Speaker 3>lot of fun. What was it the aspens? Yeah, there's
<v Speaker 3>like three different populations.
<v Speaker 2>Are like a sky island.
<v Speaker 3>They've got yeah, it's pretty crazy desert.
<v Speaker 1>They've got cypresses, they got maples, they've got that rare oak.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and uh, the big pine.
<v Speaker 1>But no Arctostaphlos pungens, which is weird. I heard from
<v Speaker 1>someone last night. I didn't even know that was a
<v Speaker 1>west that occurred in West Texas. The manzanita same they're
<v Speaker 1>same family, same clade as our butius as the Madrones.
<v Speaker 1>But in pungens is that I mean there's like ninety
<v Speaker 1>five species in California but of Arctostaphalos, but there's only
<v Speaker 1>one or two that are widespread uber ersy, which you
<v Speaker 1>even get, you know, in like southern Wisconsin. On sand
<v Speaker 1>I think it's circumpolar.
<v Speaker 2>It's like a high.
<v Speaker 1>Latitude species, but it's undoubtedly a manzanita. It's got those
<v Speaker 1>y lid you know, flowers and red berries. And then pungens,
<v Speaker 1>which is in Mexico and everywhere, and pungents has probably
<v Speaker 1>got a bunch of different ecotypes, you know, because it's unique.
<v Speaker 1>I've seen it on limestone, I've seen a volcanic But
<v Speaker 1>there's a population in the Davis Mountains, I guess on
<v Speaker 1>private land somewhere, which is I didn't know, I mean
<v Speaker 1>that's you know, which is Davis Mountains are like the
<v Speaker 1>next Sky island north from the.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's kind of strange how you can find certain
<v Speaker 3>things in the Davis Mountains that don't occur in the
<v Speaker 3>Cheesos And you know, it's like it's just kind of
<v Speaker 3>you would kind of expect to see the same populations.
<v Speaker 2>If you have never heard of term scale and before,
<v Speaker 2>I'm trying to introduce it to your listeners so you
<v Speaker 2>get a look. AT's really cool biogeographical phenomenal. Look it
<v Speaker 2>up if you never heard that before. Anyway, Okay, so
<v Speaker 2>so you're doing surveys in the park and now you're
<v Speaker 2>starting to get it. You were already into plants or what, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so much.
<v Speaker 3>I mean I mostly planted native plants when I had
<v Speaker 3>a house in Aledo where no, it's near fort Worth, okay,
<v Speaker 3>just west of Fort Worth, and you know, native plants
<v Speaker 3>definitely like growing vegetables. In fact, I still grow vegetables
<v Speaker 3>in Big Bend, but not really knowing you know, the
<v Speaker 3>scientific names or anything. So that's been a huge learning
<v Speaker 3>curve to learn you know, families and yeah different, you know.
<v Speaker 2>But anybody can do it. At the same time, it's oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's doable. I don't want people to ever be intimidated
<v Speaker 2>by that.
<v Speaker 1>Where I live in the Rio Grand Valley, a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people are intimidated by you know, Latin names, and
<v Speaker 1>it's like it's like, you don't need to be an academic.
<v Speaker 1>Look at me, I'm a slob, and I fixate on
<v Speaker 1>this stuff. It's a really cool you know, it's a really.
<v Speaker 2>Cool system of naming. It's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>You see one species in a genus, you become familiar
<v Speaker 1>with the genus. You know, six months down the line
<v Speaker 1>you see another species in that genus and you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>this is this genus.
<v Speaker 2>Holy shit, that's cool.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, because I mean I don't always know how
<v Speaker 3>to pronounce them, and that I know, I know enough
<v Speaker 3>that I can look it up and then go, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>this is what I want.
<v Speaker 1>You know, anybody's giving you grief about it, Kiping in
<v Speaker 1>his ship, you know, who corrects someone's pronunciation of.
<v Speaker 2>A dead language. Get over it.
<v Speaker 1>But so anyway, you already had in the you already,
<v Speaker 1>you're already keen on photosynthetic living things, right, and then this,
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure that just went into like hyper drive when
<v Speaker 1>you got out here.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, Only there's just so much to see. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>there's so much left to learn. And like I said,
<v Speaker 3>I've been in the park almost ten years now looking
<v Speaker 3>at plants, and you know, ask me most of the
<v Speaker 3>grasses and I'm going to go, you know, I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to learn that next year maybe.
<v Speaker 2>Very easy.
<v Speaker 1>I appreciate them, but I'm like, I don't I with grass,
<v Speaker 1>I almost never bother to get them down to species.
<v Speaker 2>I just don't care. I'll be honest. I'm not a
<v Speaker 2>shame to say that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like to consult keys unless I have to,
<v Speaker 1>and like Powell writs good keys, but not everyone does. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>some people use traits that you can only see one
<v Speaker 1>month out of the year. Some people, and if it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, that's why I go to the herbarium. That's
<v Speaker 1>the best way to learn for me, like delineating different species,
<v Speaker 1>like some of the anothors. I'll go to the herbarium
<v Speaker 1>and I look at his sheet and I take photos
<v Speaker 1>of the sheet, and then I come up with my
<v Speaker 1>own characteristics to differentiate.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>That's actually my plan when I'm done with you, is
<v Speaker 3>to go visit the herbarium and look at the orchids.
<v Speaker 3>We have some orchid surveys coming up. Oh wow, I'm
<v Speaker 3>just having trouble with three of them. It's like which ones,
<v Speaker 3>uh hexelectrist revoluta spicata, and.
<v Speaker 1>So these are all mica heterotrops, right, Yeah, they're all
<v Speaker 1>living off fungi. Yeah, no, there's no green in them,
<v Speaker 1>they're not correct, and they're all in the.
<v Speaker 2>Park and the cheese osir.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, God, So you've got this really unique lens
<v Speaker 1>into a very specific and cool and very unique botanical area.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>It's funny because a friend was asking me just the
<v Speaker 3>other day. He's like, how many orchids are in the park,
<v Speaker 3>because I was telling them about their orchard survey coming up.
<v Speaker 3>Just the top off the top of my head, I said,
<v Speaker 3>I think there's six species, and then I as I
<v Speaker 3>was walking home, it's like, no, there's at least nine.
<v Speaker 3>And then I got Powell's book out and it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>there's twelve.
<v Speaker 2>That's you, right, anaturalist.
<v Speaker 3>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>You don't mind me blowing up your e naturalist name out.
<v Speaker 3>Of I don't think anybody's gonna no.
<v Speaker 2>It's good.
<v Speaker 1>So you've got yeah, man, this is Look she's taking
<v Speaker 1>pictures of lichens now, thank god. My friend the carry
<v Speaker 1>canutes and studies lichens, and I just we get so
<v Speaker 1>many of them. I mean, you probably get some of
<v Speaker 1>the same species up here, but we get so many
<v Speaker 1>of them growing in the Rio Grand Valley and what's
<v Speaker 1>left of it that hasn't been turned into a car
<v Speaker 1>dealership or a shopping center. We get so many just
<v Speaker 1>growing on the bare ground, like just ground likings, just fascinating,
<v Speaker 1>you know, and their dormant. They look dead, and then
<v Speaker 1>when you see them when they're alive, they're just lit
<v Speaker 1>up and incredible, really bizarre organism.
<v Speaker 3>They are really strange. It's like, what is this thing?
<v Speaker 2>I'm probably very understudied too, so yeah, I have.
<v Speaker 3>No idea how to even look them up, So I
<v Speaker 3>just throw them out there and see, yeah, hopefully somebody
<v Speaker 3>will do something for me.
<v Speaker 1>So anyway, so you were so you were you started
<v Speaker 1>doing surveys in the park and you were coming out here,
<v Speaker 1>Like what time of year would you leave for the
<v Speaker 1>summer stay?
<v Speaker 3>When I first started coming out here, I just stayed,
<v Speaker 3>which is it's pretty brutal to be in an RV
<v Speaker 3>and Panther junction over the summer because it's like there's
<v Speaker 3>no way to cool that thing down. But eventually I
<v Speaker 3>got smart and started leaving during the summer. And my
<v Speaker 3>usual schedule now is I'll be in the park from
<v Speaker 3>late September to early May and hope for a monsoon
<v Speaker 3>so that when I come back, I can catch whatever
<v Speaker 3>has happened.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, was there a monsoon last year?
<v Speaker 3>No monsoon last year and very very minor one the
<v Speaker 3>year before. Yeah, it's the park's under severe drought. There's
<v Speaker 3>nobody's going to find a vicula. Now, even if I
<v Speaker 3>could tell you where to look, if you looked very closely,
<v Speaker 3>you would see like the little cottoney mass that is it.
<v Speaker 1>Looks like it looks like toilet paper or like some
<v Speaker 1>like white cardboard that got disintegrated and blew around, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I mean it's I mean, that's what it.
<v Speaker 2>Looked like when I saw it. Yeah, it's even a
<v Speaker 2>month after you were out there.
<v Speaker 3>It's even more cryptive now because you know, of course
<v Speaker 3>there's sand blowing around, so it's you know, got sand
<v Speaker 3>particles on it, and it's just if I didn't. Well,
<v Speaker 3>I have found new populations, but they're close to the
<v Speaker 3>populations that we've known about.
<v Speaker 2>Mm hmm.
<v Speaker 1>But it seems like if this thing was just discovered
<v Speaker 1>in Sanderson too, that's what like.
<v Speaker 2>Forty miles away, that it might be more widespread.
<v Speaker 1>But again it's right, it's in remote desert off and
<v Speaker 1>on private land, a.
<v Speaker 3>Lot of private land between Big Ben and Sanderson's and
<v Speaker 3>just really desolate.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you don't want to go out there in
<v Speaker 2>the heat. It's dangerous.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and right now, I mean just look, I found myself,
<v Speaker 3>you know, looking for Willy and Willy o Vicula, will.
<v Speaker 2>Willie Willy Willy because that's the common.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever your name is, right, who came up with that
<v Speaker 1>was I did?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but yeah, I found myself. I was in a
<v Speaker 3>part of the and it's like, oh, this habitat looks
<v Speaker 3>really good. And so I'm like walking real slowly looking.
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, this is insane. You know, You're not going
<v Speaker 3>to be able to identify anything. It's it's going to
<v Speaker 3>be it's not fucking and opened.
<v Speaker 1>I mean I'm also I mean, I'm also nuts, so
<v Speaker 1>I might not be the I mean the things I've
<v Speaker 1>done to go look for plants because they are they're
<v Speaker 1>like my medicine from the parts of the world I
<v Speaker 1>don't want to look at. So but anyway, but yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's it's brutally try.
<v Speaker 2>It's try all over Texas right now, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>And I was talking to I was talking to Powell
<v Speaker 1>about it, yeah, and he was saying, it's i mean,
<v Speaker 1>massive trees around town are dying. It's this is like
<v Speaker 1>a landscape changing. This changes the face of the landscape,
<v Speaker 1>these mega droughts. Powell was even like, you know, I
<v Speaker 1>wonder if this is similar to the what drove the
<v Speaker 1>Anasazi out of their cliff dwellings and you know, the
<v Speaker 1>mega drought in the twelve hundred, because it's it's been
<v Speaker 1>a gradual he said, it's you know, it's just basically
<v Speaker 1>started the nineties and you've had.
<v Speaker 2>Boom years since then.
<v Speaker 1>So if you're just looking at like the last five years,
<v Speaker 1>you're like, well, we had a big rain three four
<v Speaker 1>years ago. But then when you look you zoom out
<v Speaker 1>and you look at the long term cycle, it's a
<v Speaker 1>downward trend. And I think most of the rain from
<v Speaker 1>correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the rain
<v Speaker 1>that this region of Texas and northern Mexico gets comes
<v Speaker 1>from either the Gulf or from the Pacific or the
<v Speaker 1>Gulf of California. Yeah, you get these high pressure systems
<v Speaker 1>acting like giant pylons to the east or west of us.
<v Speaker 2>We don't get any of that. So I don't know
<v Speaker 2>what's going on. I hope, but god, it's brutal to see.
<v Speaker 3>It's really Yeah, when I was coming back to the park.
<v Speaker 3>Kathy was like, well, I'm going to warn you that
<v Speaker 3>the north part of the park there are plants dying.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, sometimes she might exaggerate some so I
<v Speaker 3>wasn't really expecting to see. I mean, I driving into
<v Speaker 3>the park, I'm, you know, pulling my RV. I pulled
<v Speaker 3>off to the side of the road and just walked
<v Speaker 3>out and yeah, there were yuccas that are completely tan
<v Speaker 3>and geez, you know, I was, you know, snapping the
<v Speaker 3>kreos out bush and the lechagea. I mean, these are
<v Speaker 3>plants that are deserted star warts.
<v Speaker 2>These are like hardcore drought tolerant in their toast.
<v Speaker 3>And I mean, I'm not saying they're all dead, but.
<v Speaker 2>But a lot.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, if you've got kreoso dying, that's it's kind
<v Speaker 1>of remarkable, you know.
<v Speaker 2>It's.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So I don't know, if, you know, is it
<v Speaker 3>gonna come back from the root system? Is there enough
<v Speaker 3>there assuming we get a rain anytime soon, or is
<v Speaker 3>you know, said going to just turn into dust land.
<v Speaker 2>I don't I imagine.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I wonder, I wonder if there's if there's like
<v Speaker 1>a couple of individuals that a couple of phenotypes that
<v Speaker 1>have you know, some sort of long term drought dormancy
<v Speaker 1>that they can recover from. You know, kind of like
<v Speaker 1>how a certain mushrooms can die back to sclerotia and
<v Speaker 1>just hang out for a few years. If there's any
<v Speaker 1>plants that can do that or not. And then but
<v Speaker 1>you know, and how much rain would it take to
<v Speaker 1>wake them? Yeah, if the case, that's the thing, because
<v Speaker 1>like you get a day or two of rain, it's
<v Speaker 1>not going to be enough.
<v Speaker 2>You need like a week of.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we didn't even get the heavy snow like you know,
<v Speaker 3>it seems like the last six years or so in
<v Speaker 3>February March we get some snow and you know that
<v Speaker 3>would you know, provide a good layer of slow water
<v Speaker 3>system that nothing like that either.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the we got a dust storm two nights ago.
<v Speaker 1>Did you get it in the park. It was it
<v Speaker 1>felt it was like Kalahari style dust storm, like visibility
<v Speaker 1>is reduced to a one block.
<v Speaker 2>No, it didn't very like.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, So okay, so you're doing you're doing you're
<v Speaker 1>doing surveys for the park and you're going like all
<v Speaker 1>over the park.
<v Speaker 2>Just what was your like, what was your assignment.
<v Speaker 3>Basically when that particular day or well just.
<v Speaker 2>Because I mean, like I said, I had noticed you
<v Speaker 2>observing really cool stuff before that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean I've got a background assignment, which is basically,
<v Speaker 3>you know, relook, you know, finding populations of rare pliants,
<v Speaker 3>one that we have a list of, and also going
<v Speaker 3>back to when they've been found before and looking to see,
<v Speaker 3>you know, how they're doing. So that's always on the radar.
<v Speaker 3>And where was I going?
<v Speaker 2>Are you just using an iPhone when you're out there?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, most of the time. I do occasionally care. I've
<v Speaker 3>got a Canon camera, but it's so it's so big
<v Speaker 3>and heavy.
<v Speaker 2>That iPhone shield tag too, which is yeah useful.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and yeah, I started looking, you know, I just want,
<v Speaker 3>you know something. It's like a small camera that would
<v Speaker 3>have GPS on it, but hard to find.
<v Speaker 2>None of them make it. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>use a Samsung well fun I'm particular with Samsung, but
<v Speaker 2>but I use a Nikon that hosts up to like
<v Speaker 2>a little app called They've Got The Nikon is the
<v Speaker 2>only camera company I think that I've been able to
<v Speaker 2>find that has a like decent app, like a app
<v Speaker 2>that's good enough to get and that I'll send coordinates
<v Speaker 2>to your camera, but you got I like be on
<v Speaker 2>top of it, and if you forget the home, you
<v Speaker 2>know to open it when you're out there on your
<v Speaker 2>phone and it forgets. But it's been super helpful.
<v Speaker 1>And then it sends the photos back to your phone
<v Speaker 1>in a reduced file size, which is helpful too, so
<v Speaker 1>you can put them up on ie app whatever.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, it's funny. I did have my camera the
<v Speaker 3>day that we found Avicula, and my iPhone photos were
<v Speaker 3>actually better than what I took with my two thousand
<v Speaker 3>dollars camera set.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my friend man just uses he just uses an
<v Speaker 1>iPhone for all his plant stuff. It's hilarious and he'll
<v Speaker 1>he gets decent photos and he's just he's discovered a
<v Speaker 1>couple of new species too. He just discovered a new
<v Speaker 1>Xylerisis species. But he I mean, yeah, he's.
<v Speaker 2>He's like you.
<v Speaker 1>He goes out to the middle of nowhere, but in
<v Speaker 1>Death Valley and he's always finding really interesting stuff. But anyway,
<v Speaker 1>so okay, so you're going out and you're surveying and
<v Speaker 1>just and you're just like collecting photographic records.
<v Speaker 2>Are you taking notes? Do? What does your job actually entail?
<v Speaker 3>Especially just photographic records. The app that we use to
<v Speaker 3>make the record has you know, you know, asking questions
<v Speaker 3>like you know, is it in Budflower? You know a naturalists, No,
<v Speaker 3>we've got in house. Well it's Survey one two three
<v Speaker 3>is what we use and what else does it want?
<v Speaker 3>Usually I can take I can take a photo right
<v Speaker 3>from that app. Population size, you know, obviously not the
<v Speaker 3>entire population, but like if I'm standing there, you know
<v Speaker 3>how many aerial carpusses do I see?
<v Speaker 2>Ye?
<v Speaker 3>That kind of thing.
<v Speaker 1>So, so so you go out there, you're collecting data.
<v Speaker 1>I mean a photograph is a shift on the data
<v Speaker 1>on itself, and you're also collecting information about the population
<v Speaker 1>habitat and so what do you what is this like
<v Speaker 1>a you get paid for it? Is it just volunteer Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's just a volunteer work and then it goes into
<v Speaker 1>a database afterwards.
<v Speaker 3>Or is it Yeah, we've got a database that's this
<v Speaker 3>would not have public access. Yeah, obviously we don't want people, right,
<v Speaker 3>not that we have poachers in the park.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Is that Have you guys caught people poaching, like
<v Speaker 1>large scale poaching or is it just like tourists like
<v Speaker 1>I saw cactus and find to take it home.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it was funny, was it. I think it was
<v Speaker 3>when I got there this season. So back in October,
<v Speaker 3>one of the LA's actually caught somebody digging up a cactus.
<v Speaker 3>I mean just walked up on him and they were
<v Speaker 3>doing that.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>And of course, you know they weren't a professional poacher.
<v Speaker 3>They were just you know, wanted this one cat.
<v Speaker 2>They were just taking some home. Yeah, so they could
<v Speaker 2>slowly kill it.
<v Speaker 3>In Yeah, exactly exactly.
<v Speaker 1>It's a little bit more forgivable, but still still a bummer. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you're taking from the land. Yeah, yeah, I uh god,
<v Speaker 1>you see I remember where was it?
<v Speaker 2>It was?
<v Speaker 1>I think it was on the west side of the park.
<v Speaker 1>There used to be this old guy had a cactus
<v Speaker 1>a little cactus station there, and he he had all
<v Speaker 1>these aero cars that were certainly though he wasn't growing
<v Speaker 1>he's they were massive size of grapefruits.
<v Speaker 2>And you'd ask him about it. It's like, oh, yeah
<v Speaker 2>they were. I just saved him from a road.
<v Speaker 1>They were clearing the road, you know, and it's like,
<v Speaker 1>really have been clear in the same road five were
<v Speaker 1>five years ago, buddy.
<v Speaker 2>You know, It's like, but again, it's your land. You
<v Speaker 2>could do it.
<v Speaker 1>There's no laws protecting stuff in Texas. So someone asked
<v Speaker 1>me that the other day, like you think certain plants
<v Speaker 1>should be labeled is endangered? And I was like, not
<v Speaker 1>in Texas, because when you label them as endangered in Texas,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you put a mark on them. And then
<v Speaker 1>people like the Attorney General Ken Paxton, now they want
<v Speaker 1>to come for it, like a sleepy as prostrada being
<v Speaker 1>labeled is endangered. I thought was really good at first,
<v Speaker 1>but when I look back at what happened with the
<v Speaker 1>border wall. As soon as that thing got labeled endangered
<v Speaker 1>two weeks later, the Attorney General was pushing really hard
<v Speaker 1>to come in and cleared. He's like, we got to
<v Speaker 1>ramp this up now, whereas before it was like it
<v Speaker 1>might happen, it might not.
<v Speaker 2>We have time, and so yeah, it's it's wild. It's
<v Speaker 2>wild in this state.
<v Speaker 1>But uh, you know, I just I just read that
<v Speaker 1>the lieutenant governors filing a bill to make like all
<v Speaker 1>hemp products illegal now, which is like, man.
<v Speaker 2>Really, like you, how how far back do you want
<v Speaker 2>to go? What are you doing?
<v Speaker 1>Like you can get hammered and get a duy. The
<v Speaker 1>amount of duys I see in this state. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>because people drink, people are gonna numb themselves from reality
<v Speaker 1>with something if they're unhappy, especially and they can't find
<v Speaker 1>fulfillment and so, but booz so booze is fine. But
<v Speaker 1>then like these these hemp products, because you know, you
<v Speaker 1>can technically buy like even at the baker here in time,
<v Speaker 1>you can buy like a five milligram THHC Hop soda.
<v Speaker 1>And I don't like weed. It makes things too weird
<v Speaker 1>for me. I just and it makes me forget stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But I also realize it's a lot less harmful than alcohol.
<v Speaker 1>But I guess these like little weed drinks are going
<v Speaker 1>to become illegal now and there you can make them
<v Speaker 1>because it's technically point three percent. That's the loophole. Because
<v Speaker 1>I saw them and I was like, how are these legal?
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, oh, it's less than point three percent
<v Speaker 1>by volumes, right, cool? Whatever, five milligrams isn't going to
<v Speaker 1>get someone. It would probably get me ripped.
<v Speaker 2>But like, I know some serious stoners they're pulling tubes
<v Speaker 2>day night whatever.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think it's healthy, but you know, at least
<v Speaker 1>they're not drunkster or addicted. The corner video games anyway. Okay, So,
<v Speaker 1>so you're out here and because you're seeing all kinds
<v Speaker 1>of interesting plants, and I want to talk to you
<v Speaker 1>about some of the other species you see too, because,
<v Speaker 1>like I said, you've got a lens in a really
<v Speaker 1>unique and biodiverse area that not many people get a
<v Speaker 1>chance to see, especially since most people are confined to trails,
<v Speaker 1>and you're going away the fuck out there, right, I
<v Speaker 1>mean you have been? Are there any parts of the
<v Speaker 1>park that you have not been to yet?
<v Speaker 3>The Sierra Camata is pretty much a black hole for me?
<v Speaker 2>Why is that.
<v Speaker 3>Difficult to get to? And oh, I don't know the
<v Speaker 3>politically correct way to say this, but but probably not
<v Speaker 3>safe to go camp solo.
<v Speaker 1>And people who are no one is say the Crime
<v Speaker 1>Pas podcast from experiencing discomfort from something.
<v Speaker 3>There are obviously dangers everywhere, but that is, you know,
<v Speaker 3>one part of the park that I would not feel
<v Speaker 3>from comfortable.
<v Speaker 1>With trafficking and moving people or drugs everything.
<v Speaker 3>We probably everything.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so that's.
<v Speaker 3>One area that I I mean, I could probably gather
<v Speaker 3>some folks and I would feel comfortable going out there,
<v Speaker 3>But most most of my hiking I do solo. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I'm very comfortable in other parts of the park.
<v Speaker 2>Out you're going out there completely alone, what do you
<v Speaker 2>bring for water? Like? How are you just a couple
<v Speaker 2>of water.
<v Speaker 1>Bottles or you got one of those nice camelback things
<v Speaker 1>with the tube or what are you doing?
<v Speaker 3>No, I've learned that I usually suck those dry in
<v Speaker 3>the first two miles and then I'm host for the rest.
<v Speaker 2>Of the carrying around this little bladder.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so I usually carry like it depends on how
<v Speaker 3>far I'm going and how hot it is, but I
<v Speaker 3>carry like the one liter nolgene bottles, and that way
<v Speaker 3>I can monitor how much I've I've had.
<v Speaker 1>Are there any springs that are still in the right now?
<v Speaker 1>Every spring in West Texas I feel like is dried
<v Speaker 1>up because the water tables dropped so much.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they're I mean, Glenn Spring has definitely got water.
<v Speaker 3>Some of the smaller springs they're moist, but I wouldn't
<v Speaker 3>say you could get water from them.
<v Speaker 2>It's like wet sand.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, if you're really desperate, I guess you can suck
<v Speaker 3>on the wet sands.
<v Speaker 1>Are there feral donkeys in the park, Yes, I see
<v Speaker 1>them digging with them.
<v Speaker 3>We call they would be trespassed livestock.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, what do they do with those? Round them
<v Speaker 2>up or what?
<v Speaker 3>That's the dream?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you get you start offering free donkeys. I bet
<v Speaker 1>you could find.
<v Speaker 2>What does it one? A donkey?
<v Speaker 3>If you got room for donkeys, you know, if anybody
<v Speaker 3>wants to come.
<v Speaker 1>To donkeys are cool, I don't want them out there
<v Speaker 1>because they will fuck up a lance. Oh yeah, but
<v Speaker 1>uh but I would have one in my yard, put
<v Speaker 1>a little party hat on it, you know, the carrots
<v Speaker 1>and stuff.
<v Speaker 3>I know where you can get one.
<v Speaker 2>Get it really seriously. Yeah, I wonder if I could
<v Speaker 2>fit in my truck if you put like a put
<v Speaker 2>a little mattress back.
<v Speaker 3>There for maybe get a little trailer for the day.
<v Speaker 2>A donkey would be amazing.
<v Speaker 1>Could rent that out for birthday parties occasionally there. Yeah
<v Speaker 1>they're cool, they got them into my hobby, but again
<v Speaker 1>they really fuck up the Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The the livestock trails that are you know along the
<v Speaker 3>river road is just in the ten years I've been there,
<v Speaker 3>I mean it's just been dramatic. I bet you know
<v Speaker 3>if you went on Google Earth, I bet you could
<v Speaker 3>just see them, you know, getting.
<v Speaker 2>They let ranchers livestock.
<v Speaker 3>How do they know they just the critters just walk
<v Speaker 3>across the river.
<v Speaker 2>Oh oh, because it's that low.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Wow, it's completely dry in spots, which is completely dry,
<v Speaker 3>which is kind of amazing that I haven't seen any
<v Speaker 3>press on that.
<v Speaker 2>But god, that's crazy. Man. That is depressing as well too.
<v Speaker 3>It is. We were out at Salise, which is between
<v Speaker 3>Sols and Tally is the big bend, and completely dry.
<v Speaker 3>We walked up the river for at least a mile
<v Speaker 3>just cheesus didn't get our feet wet.
<v Speaker 1>Have you seen that? You've been here once since twenty fifteen?
<v Speaker 1>Have you seen that before?
<v Speaker 3>Not in that particular section, like sant Alana Canyon can
<v Speaker 3>get dry. But yeah, and like there's no water. We
<v Speaker 3>get the water from the Rio Concos and there's no
<v Speaker 3>water in Mexico for them to you know, there's a
<v Speaker 3>treaty they're supposed to be releasing water and they don't
<v Speaker 3>have any water to release, how I understand it.
<v Speaker 2>So it's like, where do you think this goes?
<v Speaker 3>Well, it's bad news for the outfitters. You know, they're
<v Speaker 3>trying to sell canoe trips and yeah, I can't do that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I don't know what's going to happen.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean.
<v Speaker 1>And with how hot it's been to I mean, so
<v Speaker 1>that's the thing. It's not just drought, but it's yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's the spigot that lets the water into the bathtub.
<v Speaker 1>And the evaporation and the human use, both of which
<v Speaker 1>are going up. Evaporations going up because the climate change
<v Speaker 1>and hotter summers. Shout out to the oil companies to
<v Speaker 1>for being really good at convincing people that it doesn't exist.
<v Speaker 1>You guys have done it. Really impressive. I am impressed.
<v Speaker 2>Now. It just shows pr can do anything. And just
<v Speaker 2>the word.
<v Speaker 1>Climate triggers to people. It's funny. It's like the climate.
<v Speaker 1>You're not even talking about climate change. You use the
<v Speaker 1>word climate as a vocab woord and they get what
<v Speaker 1>you know, fucking okay, Well we're dealing with another level
<v Speaker 1>of intellect here, or lack of it like anyway. But
<v Speaker 1>and then the human use, of course is skyrocketing too.
<v Speaker 1>You know, where I live in South Texas, the population
<v Speaker 1>boom is through the roof.
<v Speaker 2>There's like almost two.
<v Speaker 1>Million people living in the Rio Grand Valley now used
<v Speaker 1>to be eight hundred thousand. It's nearly doubled in the
<v Speaker 1>last I think thirty years. So so there's so many
<v Speaker 1>more straws, you know, and they're building. That's the thing
<v Speaker 1>that drives me nuts too, is these developers, these shipbank
<v Speaker 1>developers are building these cul de sac communities. Everywhere you
<v Speaker 1>live in a desert. It's South Texas is where the
<v Speaker 1>Gulf transitions to desert. There's literally yucca and barrel cacti
<v Speaker 1>on the South Texas coast. But you want to have
<v Speaker 1>a lawn, like people these cul de sac communities all
<v Speaker 1>have lawns. They're like, they're irrigating lawns. It's insane where
<v Speaker 1>it's one hundred and five degrees, Like you're how much
<v Speaker 1>of that water even reaches the soil? You know, I
<v Speaker 1>wonder about it. It's total insanity, and nobody seems to
<v Speaker 1>question it. And I just wonder where it's going to
<v Speaker 1>and knowing these developers are not talking about the fact
<v Speaker 1>that there's no more water left.
<v Speaker 2>Of course they're not because they need to sell homes.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, but it's.
<v Speaker 1>Just a very short term I you know, and it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna lead to catastrophe, and not just environmental catastrophe, but
<v Speaker 1>for people that live there, especially in the state where
<v Speaker 1>everybody's armed.
<v Speaker 2>You can see where it is going, but it is.
<v Speaker 2>It is Texas though, and people are a little bit
<v Speaker 2>more polite here, so I wonder maybe you know, who
<v Speaker 2>knows where we'll go anyway, So the Rio Grand's been
<v Speaker 2>drying up.
<v Speaker 1>And then have you seen what other landscape changes have
<v Speaker 1>you seen since you've been you know, volunteering at the park.
<v Speaker 3>I mean other than you know what we talked about
<v Speaker 3>earlier with the you know, just the current drought is
<v Speaker 3>just it's really severe and you know, I don't think
<v Speaker 3>there's a good monsoon predicted for this year. So you know,
<v Speaker 3>what's another ye're going to do to the to the plants. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, obviously it's going to eventually affect the
<v Speaker 3>animals as well. I'm sure it already has.
<v Speaker 2>When I wonder, you know, when you look at really
<v Speaker 2>really dry regions like the Auta Kama where it just
<v Speaker 2>doesn't rain. All the moisture comes from fog, I wonder,
<v Speaker 2>I mean literally it'll go years without raining.
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes I wonder, at what point did the Auta Kama
<v Speaker 1>have a landscape that resembled, you know, more of like
<v Speaker 1>West Texas, Southwest Texas, And what was that process like
<v Speaker 1>where it slowly reached the point where it is today,
<v Speaker 1>because I mean, God, remember being at three thousand feet
<v Speaker 1>elevation a few miles in from the Pacific Ocean near
<v Speaker 1>the town of Arica in northern Chile and looking at
<v Speaker 1>the hills and they were just it was just these
<v Speaker 1>hills of andesite particles and volcanic particles.
<v Speaker 2>And it was just completely barren.
<v Speaker 1>There were in the first plants we saw where these
<v Speaker 1>Telanzia two Tilanzia species that were growing in what looked
<v Speaker 1>like waves like you're sending on another hill.
<v Speaker 2>You look at them and they.
<v Speaker 1>Look like these gray waves that are like a foot
<v Speaker 1>or two wide, maybe sixteen inches tall, but then extending
<v Speaker 1>for you know, forty yards, and then there's another wave
<v Speaker 1>behind it.
<v Speaker 2>You get up and.
<v Speaker 1>It's these Tilansias species that of course can drink, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Spanish moss is a Tilansia. They can drink through their
<v Speaker 1>the tricombes. The roots are just holding them into the sand.
<v Speaker 1>The roots don't absorb any moisture and they get all
<v Speaker 1>their moisture from fog, so that's you know, they're the
<v Speaker 1>only thing was It was a crazy landscape to be
<v Speaker 1>in because it was the only thing growing anywhere. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>supposedly there were you know, aerocized cacti scattered throughout there,
<v Speaker 1>but they were really cryptic and they kind of sink
<v Speaker 1>into the soil. But it was just these two Tilanzia species,
<v Speaker 1>marcon A and I think Landbecky I for miles. It
<v Speaker 1>was the craziest thing I've seen. And it's not even
<v Speaker 1>that hot. But I was like, certainly not by West
<v Speaker 1>Texas and July standards, but I looked around and I
<v Speaker 1>was like, man, how.
<v Speaker 2>Did it get like this? What it used to be?
<v Speaker 1>The andes went up, the ocean currents cold, and it
<v Speaker 1>just creates this really you know, it's rain shadow and
<v Speaker 1>is really dry climate. And I wonder, you know, would
<v Speaker 1>something similar happen out here if just moisture just stops reaching.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I would like to just see a picture
<v Speaker 3>of the park from when would it be hundred years ago?
<v Speaker 3>One hundred and fifty years ago? Before it got grazed?
<v Speaker 3>You know, what did what was the what was the ecosystem?
<v Speaker 3>Like was it really grasslands? Like some people are saying,
<v Speaker 3>do you.
<v Speaker 2>Know much about that? What was it? Like? I mean,
<v Speaker 2>you know much the natural history of big benaries.
<v Speaker 3>I know that before it became a park. It was
<v Speaker 3>grazed and then super grazed right before it became a
<v Speaker 3>part because they let the ranchers do what they wanted
<v Speaker 3>to do, and they were like, well, I mean this
<v Speaker 3>is what I've heard. You know, they were like, well,
<v Speaker 3>we don't need to take care of the land because
<v Speaker 3>it's not ours anymore. So they just you know, increase
<v Speaker 3>their herds exponentially.
<v Speaker 2>I believe that.
<v Speaker 3>So you know, it's like you'll see patches of grass
<v Speaker 3>and it's like, well, you know, is this really what
<v Speaker 3>it was like or you know, you know, could this
<v Speaker 3>area really have supported it? And it's hard to say
<v Speaker 3>because you know, since the grass is gone, there's so
<v Speaker 3>much erosion.
<v Speaker 2>You know, Yeah, they don't come back.
<v Speaker 3>Driving through the tourna of flats, it's like, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>That's the thing with a lot of those changes is
<v Speaker 1>that they don't come back. Like you remove a forest
<v Speaker 1>through a woodland in a certain area, especially in an
<v Speaker 1>arid landscape, it doesn't come back that easy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The Park Service has been trying, yeah, probably since the fifties,
<v Speaker 3>you know, to rehab that tourna of flat area and
<v Speaker 3>make it a grassland again, and it's just not working.
<v Speaker 1>Because, yeah, what's key to that is, you know, the
<v Speaker 1>plants create their own micro climate when they're there, you
<v Speaker 1>remove that, you're not just removing the plants. It's not
<v Speaker 1>just a matter of putting them back, it's you're removing
<v Speaker 1>the whole microclimate. You know, that creates that layer of
<v Speaker 1>humidity that makes it easier for other things to grow.
<v Speaker 1>So you're starting from square one again, and it's really
<v Speaker 1>hard to do. You know, it's much harder than if
<v Speaker 1>there's already a few plants still there that are left,
<v Speaker 1>that are holding the soil together, that are you know,
<v Speaker 1>helping retain some of the humidity, making it easier for
<v Speaker 1>other stuff to grow. And I've seen that with native
<v Speaker 1>plant gardens that I've started. When you convince someone to
<v Speaker 1>kill their lawn and you've got this barren, blank canvas,
<v Speaker 1>and you put a few plants in there, and I
<v Speaker 1>normally start with like the rutural plants, like the native ruturals,
<v Speaker 1>the native plants that are pioneer species, you know, that
<v Speaker 1>show up first, and they because they're the only thing
<v Speaker 1>you're going to have luck with, Like, you know, stuff
<v Speaker 1>that's like secondary secession or climax species is going to
<v Speaker 1>be a lot harder to keep alive and barren when
<v Speaker 1>it's barren and just getting blasted by sun. And so
<v Speaker 1>those those ruterals, while they may not be you know,
<v Speaker 1>if it's like cow Pendesa in Cilia, know Verbasine and
<v Speaker 1>Celioides or any of the other ones.
<v Speaker 2>You know, they're like the.
<v Speaker 1>Weedy natives, like they can get established in that barren habitat,
<v Speaker 1>you know, and then they kind of they're maybe not
<v Speaker 1>the most ideal or the most beautiful, but then they
<v Speaker 1>make it easier for other stuff. Once they cover the
<v Speaker 1>land to a certain extent, they're preventing the sun from
<v Speaker 1>baking the ground, they're keeping more humidity in and that
<v Speaker 1>little understory they create, their roots are providing scaffolding for
<v Speaker 1>all the beneficial microbes and stuff, and then now other
<v Speaker 1>stuff can get established that maybe takes a little bit longer,
<v Speaker 1>and what otherwise do. Well, there's a little seiling on
<v Speaker 1>a barren flat, and so looking at that has taught
<v Speaker 1>me a lot about you know, when you totally remove
<v Speaker 1>the cover or scrape something clean, it's like only you know,
<v Speaker 1>God forbid. If there's any invasive pioneer species around that
<v Speaker 1>have been introduced, like buffalo grass or something like that,
<v Speaker 1>because they're going to do a lot better than natives
<v Speaker 1>since they don't have any checks and balances, there's nothing
<v Speaker 1>that eats them. And then the landscapes fucked. It's a
<v Speaker 1>lot harder to get stuff established. But I wonder about that.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder what, what the what this place looked like
<v Speaker 1>five hundred years ago.
<v Speaker 3>You know, even two hundred year or something.
<v Speaker 1>I mean in Alpine, you talk to people at thirty
<v Speaker 1>years ago, like we used to get summer thunderstorms every afternoon.
<v Speaker 1>I remember swimming at the pool as a kid, and
<v Speaker 1>I you know, raining every afternoon, and everything was green.
<v Speaker 2>And you see some of the stuff that has been
<v Speaker 2>planted around town, You're like, that's a yeah, that's like
<v Speaker 2>a riparian tree.
<v Speaker 1>How are they able to grow it in someone's yard,
<v Speaker 1>you know? Or what would be a riparian tree now?
<v Speaker 1>Like obviously there must have been a lot more moisture
<v Speaker 1>in the past. I mean it's dead now, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>like up a coon tree or something like that. So
<v Speaker 1>it's interesting to think about. Have you, uh, there's been
<v Speaker 1>an uptick in tourism in a park in the last
<v Speaker 1>like post COVID or what because I remember that's a
<v Speaker 1>I noticed.
<v Speaker 2>I went to the park a couple.
<v Speaker 1>Of years ago, and I was blown away at how
<v Speaker 1>many people were ever work, because I remember going there
<v Speaker 1>in twenty fourteen and being astounded at how peaceful and
<v Speaker 1>truly remote it was. But that that aspect's kind of
<v Speaker 1>vanishing or what would you say.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, definitely post COVID it's it's I mean, if I
<v Speaker 3>have to stop at a stop sign because a car's coming,
<v Speaker 3>I mean before that just didn't happen, and now it's
<v Speaker 3>it's pretty routine just doing slow rolls through stop sign sign. No,
<v Speaker 3>I would never do that. Or if I have to
<v Speaker 3>look to cross the street, it's like, yeah, I.
<v Speaker 2>Mean there's some places where a stop sign is just
<v Speaker 2>a suggestion though being safe about it, it's fine.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's pretty crazy the amount of people that are
<v Speaker 3>in the park. Well, right now it's spring break, so
<v Speaker 3>you know, I'm a little traumatized by that. But usually
<v Speaker 3>I think I'm out of the park this time of
<v Speaker 3>year just for a week or so and get a break.
<v Speaker 3>But this time I've hung around and seeing the madness,
<v Speaker 3>and people are waiting two hours just to drive up
<v Speaker 3>into the basin.
<v Speaker 2>Jesus crazy that's like Yosemite. That's like one reason I
<v Speaker 2>won't go to Yosemite. Yeah, you know, because you just
<v Speaker 2>you get to sit.
<v Speaker 1>In a traffic jam in a beautiful area. I hate
<v Speaker 1>being in the car do. I hate driving, even like long.
<v Speaker 3>Distance, and then while you're there, you get to see
<v Speaker 3>people doing crazy things.
<v Speaker 1>That's what I wanted to say that My next question,
<v Speaker 1>which is what has the impact been some of the
<v Speaker 1>you know, negative things you've en counter negative effects that
<v Speaker 1>increased population, visitor populations have on the park.
<v Speaker 3>I haven't really seen it that much because you know,
<v Speaker 3>like you alluded to to before, I don't stay on
<v Speaker 3>the trails. I'm out anywhere in the park, so I
<v Speaker 3>generally don't most days I don't see people, which is
<v Speaker 3>a happy day for me. So I don't have a
<v Speaker 3>good fell on the impact of the trails. I know,
<v Speaker 3>like going into the cheese as, going up Pinnacles trail.
<v Speaker 3>That's you know, it's definitely got a bigger footprint than
<v Speaker 3>it used to. A lot of the camp sites there
<v Speaker 3>we're seeing that as well. We're you know, it used
<v Speaker 3>to be here's where you put your tent, and now
<v Speaker 3>it's like people put three or four tents there, and
<v Speaker 3>the camp sites are just getting trampled, and of course
<v Speaker 3>people aren't picking up their toilet paper, which is always
<v Speaker 3>an issue.
<v Speaker 1>See that's I mean in a state like Texas where
<v Speaker 1>everything's private too, I imagine it's especially the effects are
<v Speaker 1>especially hard because or especially felt, because there's there's so
<v Speaker 1>few other places for people to go. There's so much
<v Speaker 1>private land. There's not like big swaths of blm land,
<v Speaker 1>you know, which is one of the lovely things about
<v Speaker 1>states like Arizona, Nevada. You could just head out and
<v Speaker 1>be in the middle of nowhere and it's no big deal,
<v Speaker 1>Like it's no one's gonna bother you, no one's gonna
<v Speaker 1>even know you're out there.
<v Speaker 2>But but yeah, you know, having so much private land
<v Speaker 2>pushes at all to the national parks or state parks.
<v Speaker 1>So uh yeah, that's a that's a rough thing to
<v Speaker 1>see that. I mean, Joshua Tree was like that too.
<v Speaker 1>I think they've had a huge uptick in visitor tourism
<v Speaker 1>and and vandalism.
<v Speaker 3>And yeah, and I didn't see that during COVID. That
<v Speaker 3>was really hard to see. It's like, why would somebody
<v Speaker 3>take out a Joshua Tree And it's like it makes
<v Speaker 3>no sense.
<v Speaker 1>Then you're I mean part of you is excited or
<v Speaker 1>like I would be that people are wanting to experience
<v Speaker 1>these things, but again it's it's just it's too much pressure.
<v Speaker 1>And then you get people who just have no prior
<v Speaker 1>experience with this and and don't know, like what is
<v Speaker 1>a not a good behavior, right, you know, or don't
<v Speaker 1>give a shit.
<v Speaker 2>They just don't care, you know, they're like, ah, it's
<v Speaker 2>just you know, and they.
<v Speaker 1>Don't realize how rare these these preserved lands are becoming.
<v Speaker 2>You know, development really ramps.
<v Speaker 1>So has have there been any what are the budget
<v Speaker 1>cuts like the recent budget cuts and job eliminations been,
<v Speaker 1>Like at the park at Big Bend.
<v Speaker 3>It's been hard. I mean the park was it's been
<v Speaker 3>understaffed for quite a while. And then to you know,
<v Speaker 3>have people randomly dismissed fired, Yeah that you know, they
<v Speaker 3>were performing their job and right, and you know they're gone,
<v Speaker 3>and you know there's nobody to do those functions anymore.
<v Speaker 1>And now somebody in an office two thousand miles away
<v Speaker 1>decides it's not relevant and they don't need it.
<v Speaker 3>I don't even know how they came up with the
<v Speaker 3>decision of who got I mean.
<v Speaker 2>The America great again by firing two hundred thousand people.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, exactly. I don't know how the public. I have
<v Speaker 3>to admit I don't read the news a lot, but
<v Speaker 3>I can't see how the public is not outraged that,
<v Speaker 3>you know, their national parks are being dismantled.
<v Speaker 2>I think a lot of people are.
<v Speaker 1>But they're also Americans are easily played, too, easily placated.
<v Speaker 1>But it's not I mean, this is you know, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they're going to take apart national Party. They're coming for
<v Speaker 1>public lands too, Yeah, they're coming. They want to open
<v Speaker 1>up public lands, not just to like you know, oil
<v Speaker 1>drilling and mining, but to building tract houses, you know,
<v Speaker 1>for developers building more track houses. A lot of those
<v Speaker 1>public lands are in the West. All those tract houses
<v Speaker 1>are surely going to have lawns too. They're all going
<v Speaker 1>to be living this unsustainable you know, shit for brained model.
<v Speaker 1>You know, like living like you got a rainfall pattern
<v Speaker 1>in North Carolina.
<v Speaker 2>When you're living in Utah. What are you doing? Man?
<v Speaker 1>Even if you don't like quote tree huggers, that's a
<v Speaker 1>ship for brained worldview. You're disconnected from reality, you know,
<v Speaker 1>you live in a dream state. You live in a
<v Speaker 1>world that doesn't exist, and I yeah, that's what I
<v Speaker 1>wanted about. I mean, I just I have to like
<v Speaker 1>divest in some ways. And also yeah, I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I guess the way I look at it is kind
<v Speaker 1>of like this is going to be a shit storm.
<v Speaker 2>It's to be terrible.
<v Speaker 1>Just close your eyes and you know, see where this
<v Speaker 1>comes out in twenty years, you.
<v Speaker 3>Know, Yeah, let's just arrive the next four.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. How do you like the y USA?
<v Speaker 3>That's good?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I look sway USA.
<v Speaker 1>Like I said, I used it the quick coffee for
<v Speaker 1>a little bit and it worked for like a month,
<v Speaker 1>and now I'm back on the morphine drip of a coffee.
<v Speaker 2>But I've certainly reduced.
<v Speaker 3>It everything in moderation.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah see I didn't not even do it.
<v Speaker 1>I'm freakingffee since I was like fifteen, So so what Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>What was what was a really? When this new species
<v Speaker 1>going back to a viculate? When it came out, I
<v Speaker 1>mean it's I had like ten different people, kind almost
<v Speaker 1>had twenty different people send me links to the story.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, look look at this, and like I know
<v Speaker 1>those are like half my friends wrote the wrote the paper.
<v Speaker 1>I was out there, you know, I'm friends with deb
<v Speaker 1>who discovered it. And then I was like reposting the
<v Speaker 1>video that I made, which unfortunately didn't have any good
<v Speaker 1>living uh specimens.
<v Speaker 2>So this was big news. It was all over the
<v Speaker 2>place like.
<v Speaker 3>That was quite stunning. I mean Tom Vandenberg, the part
<v Speaker 3>Chief Naturalists, you know, said it was going to be big,
<v Speaker 3>and I was like, and then, you know a lot
<v Speaker 3>of the big media we're asking for interviews. I was like, really,
<v Speaker 3>who cares if people care about this? So it was,
<v Speaker 3>you know, kind of a fun little week there. But
<v Speaker 3>you know, better than that was, you know, being able
<v Speaker 3>to go out in the field with Like I said earlier,
<v Speaker 3>doctor Powell thought so much of it that you know,
<v Speaker 3>he hiked out to see it with his wife Shirley,
<v Speaker 3>and his daughter. Can't remember her name.
<v Speaker 1>I think the Powell curator of the Sewel ross or
<v Speaker 1>Bury in one of the finest there Burier in Texas.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, and and the man to go to if you
<v Speaker 3>have need plant identification, I think, yeah. Michael Eason actually
<v Speaker 3>was in the park that day and joined Kelsey Wegan
<v Speaker 3>was out there as well. So it was a big
<v Speaker 3>big to do to get you know, get all those
<v Speaker 3>people out there and to be in the field with them.
<v Speaker 3>I was just, you know, pretty amazed by that.
<v Speaker 2>And Patty Manning too.
<v Speaker 3>Patty Manning was out there the day that I did
<v Speaker 3>the collection. She happened to be in the park and
<v Speaker 3>she was like, can I come along? And I was like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I loved her. Yeah, that was I wish I could
<v Speaker 3>have spent more time with hers, just.
<v Speaker 2>Like she was such a badass. She was so fucking cool. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I would go. I'd go visit her whenever I was
<v Speaker 2>back in town and she could group. She'd grow every
<v Speaker 2>she'd grow everything.
<v Speaker 1>Like you talk to people here and you know about
<v Speaker 1>rare plants to get like, is did anybody.
<v Speaker 2>Ever grow in there? I was like, Patty, dude, of course.
<v Speaker 1>Her her house was like her yard was like a
<v Speaker 1>botanic garden. It is like a botanic garden. It's still theirs.
<v Speaker 1>Then he's to taking care of it. But but yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so I mean, this was like a huge event. How
<v Speaker 1>else did it impact your life?
<v Speaker 3>It's causing a lot of stress. I'm not really good
<v Speaker 3>at talking to people. And I had an interview with
<v Speaker 3>Scientific America and I told my boyfriend Jimmy Duke. I
<v Speaker 3>was like, yeah, I really bombed that one talking the
<v Speaker 3>woman was able to write an article from what I
<v Speaker 3>was what I said, so.
<v Speaker 1>But scientific Americans, this is that was pretty cool. Why
<v Speaker 1>do you think that this went unnoticed for so long?
<v Speaker 3>I think that when people come to botanize Big Ben,
<v Speaker 3>they like to do it after the monsoon because that's
<v Speaker 3>when all the the known cool flowers are out. And
<v Speaker 3>this was done in March. So where we found it
<v Speaker 3>in March, and I don't think, you know, there there
<v Speaker 3>should be people in the park looking at the cactus
<v Speaker 3>flowers at that time, but this was, you know, like
<v Speaker 3>I said, off trail. I'm not advocating people go off
<v Speaker 3>trail because we get enough people to get lost when
<v Speaker 3>they're on trail that don't recommend it.
<v Speaker 2>The topic of people dying in the.
<v Speaker 3>Park exactly, So I'm not in any way encouraging people
<v Speaker 3>to go off trail. I'm very familiar with the park.
<v Speaker 3>In fact, I spent a week in the neighboring Wildlife
<v Speaker 3>Management area and I was like, I don't know where
<v Speaker 3>I'm at, you know, because I didn't have any of
<v Speaker 3>my landmarks, you know. Just seeing the dead horse from
<v Speaker 3>the from the opposite side was very disconcerting. It's like,
<v Speaker 3>so I'm very familiar with they've been National Park. I'm
<v Speaker 3>very comfortable with going off trail that I don't recommend
<v Speaker 3>it to new people. In the park. We've got lots
<v Speaker 3>of gorgeous trails that take you the nice, nice destinations. Anyway,
<v Speaker 3>back to where we're at.
<v Speaker 2>Ye, dead Horse Mountains. Have you spent much time there the.
<v Speaker 3>Last two years? That's been where I like to be.
<v Speaker 3>It's a lot of limestone, a lot of cool plants
<v Speaker 3>that aren't in other parts of the plant of the park.
<v Speaker 1>So do you think I'm just gonna put this out
<v Speaker 1>there because it's interesting topics. Some people may not want
<v Speaker 1>me to talk about it. But you think there's still
<v Speaker 1>a fafera in the park somewhere There was at one
<v Speaker 1>point volcanics, which was probably Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Martin Terry wrote an article and this is my standard line.
<v Speaker 3>He wrote an article a couple of years ago. He's
<v Speaker 3>like mister wad an article that the population had been
<v Speaker 3>poached out of the park. So that's going to be
<v Speaker 3>my standard line for now.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I know what you do.
<v Speaker 3>I've heard rumors. I've heard rumors that it's on limestone
<v Speaker 3>in the park. But I haven't there that. The rumor
<v Speaker 3>is it's very large, so.
<v Speaker 2>It's probably still out there somewhere.
<v Speaker 3>I don't see why not if it you know historically and.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, see why not.
<v Speaker 1>There's no way posters could have gotten everything so ubiquitous
<v Speaker 1>in places where it grows. But thankfully it's far removed,
<v Speaker 1>you know, across a very dangerous terrain from Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And where I'm talking about it, it's a remote area
<v Speaker 3>of the park, so it would it would involve you know,
<v Speaker 3>in time investment just to get there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but there was a population on volcanic which is
<v Speaker 1>thought to have been transported by indigenous people.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 3>I don't really know how they figured that out.
<v Speaker 1>Because you never see it on volcanic It's just it's
<v Speaker 1>just the soil chemistry is different, and I think and
<v Speaker 1>you see it with a lot of plants, like you'll
<v Speaker 1>never see aerocarpus on volcanic rock. And so if it'll
<v Speaker 1>grow there, if it's planted, but for whatever reason, if
<v Speaker 1>seed Germany's it's not gonna survive or see, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it just had it can't get established. I don't really
<v Speaker 1>understand it myself. I don't think there's I mean, I'm sure,
<v Speaker 1>probably has something to do with soil chemistry. It could
<v Speaker 1>even be soil texture. It could be the way that
<v Speaker 1>limestone behaves compared to volcanic talis when it's you know, when.
<v Speaker 2>Water moves through it. I don't know. I imagine it's
<v Speaker 2>just chemical.
<v Speaker 3>I have seen aerocarpus on the hills behind Panther Junction,
<v Speaker 3>not a lot, just you know, the rare plant here
<v Speaker 3>or there.
<v Speaker 2>On volcanics or what.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's volcanics.
<v Speaker 1>I've seen a kind of cactus horizontalonius on volcanics once
<v Speaker 1>or twice two, which.
<v Speaker 2>Is also unusual.
<v Speaker 1>That's like another limestone or calcareous soil lover, you'll see
<v Speaker 1>it unlike calcareous sandstone or but it's a good indicator
<v Speaker 1>of geology most.
<v Speaker 3>Of the time.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, but I've definitely seen it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's one you'll see widespread over the park. But
<v Speaker 3>know that I'm thinking about it, you know, probably not
<v Speaker 3>so much, definitely not in the mountains.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder about with the kind of cactus, how it's
<v Speaker 1>such a it's such a tough plant, Like, how are
<v Speaker 1>those able to because they don't recess into the soil
<v Speaker 1>like peyota or astrophytem or aerocarpus.
<v Speaker 2>Do there are just yeah, big and how do they
<v Speaker 2>you know, how do they do it?
<v Speaker 1>It's just it's got to be just a really thick
<v Speaker 1>cuticle and a lot of epicarticular wax and just I mean,
<v Speaker 1>because they're out there getting totally blasted, right, I've seen
<v Speaker 1>in the parks and uh, the fruits, Yeah, the fruits
<v Speaker 1>are just covered in those that dense wool to protect
<v Speaker 1>them from sun. But what are some of your your
<v Speaker 1>other favorite plants that you've encountered or just the ones
<v Speaker 1>that I mean you you like go to bed thinking about,
<v Speaker 1>you know, like like they're a mystery, Like how they
<v Speaker 1>exist is a mystery, how they grow out there, how
<v Speaker 1>they cope, you know, how the seed gets around any Like,
<v Speaker 1>there's a mystery about them.
<v Speaker 3>I really like the aristolochias. And I've only found Corey
<v Speaker 3>I in the park, so I'm still looking for variety eye.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure if it's there, but I keep looking.
<v Speaker 3>Cephalanthus is just a crazy plant for me to find. Obviously,
<v Speaker 3>it's going to be by springs ox cephalanthis occident. Talus
<v Speaker 3>also very curious about the cottonwoods. It's like, were they
<v Speaker 3>all you know when you see them at a spring
<v Speaker 3>where they all planted previously? Or is that just the
<v Speaker 3>way the springs, you know, historically were you know, so.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, cottonwood seed would all be wind yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and the springs are very far apart, so.
<v Speaker 1>You'll see these isolated populations, right. Yeah, that's pretty weird.
<v Speaker 3>A lot of times you just see remnants. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>I've gotten to where I can tell a dead cottonwood,
<v Speaker 3>you know, even if the parks pilled away, I could
<v Speaker 3>you know, yeah that was cotton wood.
<v Speaker 1>Here do you see a lot of dead, dead trees,
<v Speaker 1>like spots where springs dried up? How many dried up
<v Speaker 1>springs are there in the park? Oh man, a couple dozen.
<v Speaker 3>Oh more than that. There's a couple of hundred springs
<v Speaker 3>in the park.
<v Speaker 2>So, I mean, so the water tables just I would.
<v Speaker 3>Say right now the majority of them are dry.
<v Speaker 1>So the water tables just dropped that much that that's crazy. Again,
<v Speaker 1>that's that makes me think about what the landscape must
<v Speaker 1>have been like a century or two ago, h more lush, and.
<v Speaker 3>Are they gonna I mean even Oak Spring which supplies
<v Speaker 3>the water to the basin, which is crazy to think
<v Speaker 3>about that they pump it up. It is drastically low.
<v Speaker 1>Right now, what with that Aristolochia which has got a
<v Speaker 1>really cool pollination system, the pipeline flowers, you know that,
<v Speaker 1>you get it. We get a rist of Loki erecta
<v Speaker 1>in Central Texas, we get a ristal Loki California in California.
<v Speaker 1>They've got cool relationships with these butterflies as a host
<v Speaker 1>plant because of the aristo loocic acid. But the flowers
<v Speaker 1>are really unique. I mean they look otherworldly. They don't
<v Speaker 1>look anything like what most will consider a flower. And
<v Speaker 1>I've had people who don't you know, who are not
<v Speaker 1>buying U Is.
<v Speaker 2>That is that a trap? Is it like a picture plant? Well,
<v Speaker 2>it's a trap. It temporarily traps flies. But yeah, but
<v Speaker 2>what about that? Uh gets you going? Is it just
<v Speaker 2>where it occurs or.
<v Speaker 3>Just the shape of the flower is just so unique
<v Speaker 3>and just you know, finding it in random places. It's
<v Speaker 3>just cool. I was really excited to see it in
<v Speaker 3>the Smokies because I thought, man, those leaves are so
<v Speaker 3>huge that you know the flower is going to be
<v Speaker 3>not this species. But yeah, that's I think they've got
<v Speaker 3>tom Posa or something out there. I was thinking, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>the flower is going to be huge too, and it's
<v Speaker 3>just this little tiny really, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Tomantos could grow far north, I think I think they
<v Speaker 1>grow many. I think they occurring many Minnesota too. But
<v Speaker 1>Castilla stuardy which used to be what was it hallakantha, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's a rare one too. That's got a kind of
<v Speaker 1>a sporadic distribution, And I was interested in it because
<v Speaker 1>it's it looks like what's in the same genus, and
<v Speaker 1>it's closely related to Castilla at morii, which is a
<v Speaker 1>fucking dope plant you get in the Sonora in desert
<v Speaker 1>and parts of California. Crucifixion thorn hmmm, because it's got
<v Speaker 1>you know, it looks just like stewarty I, except it
<v Speaker 1>gets bigger and it's got kind of thinner stems but
<v Speaker 1>again leafless photosynthetic stems and really sharp tapering points. Where
<v Speaker 1>do you is every widespread or is it kind of
<v Speaker 1>a rare one or what?
<v Speaker 3>I'm still deciphering that one between and Cobra lenia. So
<v Speaker 3>that's kind of why I put that picture up is
<v Speaker 3>on nine out. It was just to try and you know,
<v Speaker 3>to remind myself to go look at the differences, and
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure that vegetatively I could tell the difference
<v Speaker 3>right now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they could be They could certainly be tricky. The
<v Speaker 1>castillas tend to have a little bit of velvet on
<v Speaker 1>the stems, and then when you see them in fruit,
<v Speaker 1>then it's.
<v Speaker 3>Like, yeah, if you see him in fruit, then you're good.
<v Speaker 1>But I was looking at a population of that by
<v Speaker 1>Uri Lingua and this I guess this dude who just
<v Speaker 1>bought the land it was on I've been going through
<v Speaker 1>it for a few years.
<v Speaker 2>He came out. He was really mad. He's like taking
<v Speaker 2>pictures of us and stuff put on Facebook.
<v Speaker 1>And then someone was like, hey, I know, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I know that guy. He's finding like the Tilingua Locals group,
<v Speaker 1>and so I was like, I know that guy. He's
<v Speaker 1>he's okay, he's legit.
<v Speaker 2>Don't worry, you know. And he chilled out a little bit,
<v Speaker 2>and then I wrote the guy and apologized, you know whatever.
<v Speaker 2>It's like, man.
<v Speaker 1>Then I looked at later out the property butteries and
<v Speaker 1>because I got ONYX hunting, we weren't even on his land,
<v Speaker 1>but he was.
<v Speaker 2>Like freaking out, you know. I was like, man, I'll
<v Speaker 2>show you my ID, Like what could we be up
<v Speaker 2>to out here, like we got a camera, you know.
<v Speaker 3>It's yeah, I wonder what he was worried about.
<v Speaker 1>Freaking out man, I mean he I guess people know him.
<v Speaker 1>He's an all right guy. It's just that Texas. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's just that Texas mentality. He's super turned up, Whereas
<v Speaker 1>I've been in Mexico before and that happens.
<v Speaker 2>And the you know, the landowners like what are you doing?
<v Speaker 1>He wants to make sure you're not stealing or hunting
<v Speaker 1>or fishing or anything. And then you tell him, he's
<v Speaker 1>like oh, and then he hangs up hanging out with
<v Speaker 1>you for three hours and showing you other cool stuff. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was really weird man, It's I don't know. It
<v Speaker 1>kind of bummed me out for a while, but whatever.
<v Speaker 2>What are some other interesting What are like some of the.
<v Speaker 1>Rarest plants that you see in the park that are
<v Speaker 1>just not for whatever reason, they're sporadic and they're not
<v Speaker 1>very they're not very common.
<v Speaker 3>Well, definitely the orchids. What else would it be.
<v Speaker 2>The orchids are all in the cheese thos.
<v Speaker 3>Basically they're all in the cheese ays in the high
<v Speaker 3>country and very sporadic.
<v Speaker 2>What else is.
<v Speaker 1>I saw that the that juniper that's on that boot.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's on the Buqunon trail. It was like
<v Speaker 1>a famous plant. It's like right there, like right above
<v Speaker 1>this vista that looks off over the hills towards Mexico.
<v Speaker 1>I remember being on mushrooms there once and watching these
<v Speaker 1>ravens like just they were diving and doing all these
<v Speaker 1>aerials and it's like they were just having fun. It
<v Speaker 1>was really cool to see. But I guess that juniper
<v Speaker 1>finally croaked from the drought.
<v Speaker 3>Where did the fire get it?
<v Speaker 2>I think it was just the drought. There was a
<v Speaker 2>fire up there too.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, got it? Twenty one.
<v Speaker 2>Was it the lightning or was it person or what?
<v Speaker 3>I don't think they ever found the source, but most
<v Speaker 3>likely person because I think it happened next to one
<v Speaker 3>of the vault toilets. Probably somebody on mushrooms.
<v Speaker 2>Come on, you don't need it. What was it?
<v Speaker 1>There was a oh god, there was some Uh let
<v Speaker 1>me look there was something you had seen that was
<v Speaker 1>another rare one. It was was it to linum or
<v Speaker 1>was it the telenum or anteacum or let me look
<v Speaker 1>at what it was? It was a maybe it was
<v Speaker 1>an Ana camp serotin see, which is a which is
<v Speaker 1>a mostly South African family, sister to cactus family, but
<v Speaker 1>maybe not I forget which one, but that was. I
<v Speaker 1>remember seeing one of those that you had observed and
<v Speaker 1>being like, man, what that was a pretty rare one.
<v Speaker 1>It's just talanta palagonoid palagloides. I don't think it was that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe I'm confusing with something else. But you've certainly been
<v Speaker 1>all over the park, have you. You said you've been
<v Speaker 1>in the Dead Horse a lot. Yes, And that's just
<v Speaker 1>that's all limestone, right.
<v Speaker 3>It's all yeah, limes. Is it all not Roy's Peak?
<v Speaker 3>But mostly I'm mostly don't limestone in the areas that
<v Speaker 3>I've that I'm most interested in or limestone.
<v Speaker 1>Do you see a lot of pig damage out there?
<v Speaker 1>Is mostly in the north end of the park.
<v Speaker 3>That's the north end of the park, kind of over
<v Speaker 3>close to the Turling Ranch border.
<v Speaker 2>Are they doing anything to remove them?
<v Speaker 3>Possibly?
<v Speaker 1>I know someone who was doing removals north of the
<v Speaker 1>park and had a thermal throne and.
<v Speaker 2>It was nice and.
<v Speaker 1>They had a pig breg one of those traps. It
<v Speaker 1>was like circular and that's where they Yeah, I was
<v Speaker 1>telling you about earlier where they go, they get you
<v Speaker 1>get them used to it over like a month or two,
<v Speaker 1>and then you just drop it down and they had
<v Speaker 1>still go in it and then yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we've got a sizeable elk population in that part
<v Speaker 3>of the park as well, which I don't really know
<v Speaker 3>how much resource damage they're doing.
<v Speaker 2>Are they native?
<v Speaker 3>No? I think Texas used to have elk, but these
<v Speaker 3>were brought in from the Rockies, probably one of the
<v Speaker 3>nearby ranches for you know, hunts.
<v Speaker 2>Oh.
<v Speaker 1>God, the audience got to be bad too, are very bad,
<v Speaker 1>and they're huge hers, right right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they've been spotted in in the cheeses.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, that's brutal. God during a drought.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, actually there was an elk spotted heading towards the
<v Speaker 3>cheese as and that could I think it could do
<v Speaker 3>some damage up there. But yeah, so far, no pigs
<v Speaker 3>in the cheeses.
<v Speaker 2>That's good. Bears though, and bears.
<v Speaker 3>Bears are should be coming out of hibernation pretty soon,
<v Speaker 3>so that it'll be interesting to see how they're going
<v Speaker 3>to deal with the drought. And I would imagine they're
<v Speaker 3>going to go to Mexico.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the cheesos is a small area do I mean,
<v Speaker 1>how much space for wildlife is there, especially if the
<v Speaker 1>you know, visitor ship.
<v Speaker 2>Is going on.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, you know, the visitors think the water is
<v Speaker 3>there for them, and of course they're depleting in each
<v Speaker 3>nahas or springs that are up there. It's just kind of.
<v Speaker 1>A do you think that they'll at some point point
<v Speaker 1>they might restrict restrict people or like just have like
<v Speaker 1>a couple of weeks where like no visitors are allowed
<v Speaker 1>or something to any of these areas of the land
<v Speaker 1>can recover.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I think it's gonna happen, just because they're gonna
<v Speaker 3>rebuild the lodge, So that should shut down that area
<v Speaker 3>for this is at least a year. This is the
<v Speaker 3>restaurant part of the area, so that should that'll shut
<v Speaker 3>it down for at least a year, And that'll be
<v Speaker 3>very interesting to see what happens with the landscape, especially
<v Speaker 3>if we get some raine.
<v Speaker 1>Because I mean, at some point you just have to
<v Speaker 1>you do have to shut it. You have to say
<v Speaker 1>there's too many people coming in.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they're gonna have to figure that out because I
<v Speaker 3>mean I was saying earlier, like because it's spring break
<v Speaker 3>and we have so many visitors you stop people at
<v Speaker 3>the bottom of the hill and say, you know, you
<v Speaker 3>can't come, you can't go up until we got somebody
<v Speaker 3>coming down because there's just not enough parking.
<v Speaker 2>And what do people do. They get pissed or they
<v Speaker 2>understand or what is it.
<v Speaker 3>I haven't worked that particular area, but I've heard that,
<v Speaker 3>you know, there's always the one percent that's going to be.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't matter, it's my park.
<v Speaker 3>But I think for the most part the visitors have been,
<v Speaker 3>you know, understanding of the situation.
<v Speaker 1>But there have been issues with people just parking off
<v Speaker 1>on the side of the road, parking on the vegetation.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 3>They don't seem to have any issue with, you know,
<v Speaker 3>running over a cruise out which hopefully they'll get a
<v Speaker 3>flat tire out of the deal.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, it's the entitlement I mean. But also it's
<v Speaker 1>just too many people for too few national parks. And
<v Speaker 1>is Guadeloupe Mountains having similar issues from what you know?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, but I would I would expect. I
<v Speaker 3>can remember probably fifteen years ago, I could easily, you know,
<v Speaker 3>if I was traveling cost country, use that as an
<v Speaker 3>overnight and you know, you gotta of your reservations.
<v Speaker 2>Now, Oh really, you used to be able to watch
<v Speaker 2>just like camp in the park. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>They You know, I've got an RV, so if I
<v Speaker 3>was pulling my RV, you know their campgrounds not sorry, sorry, Gomo.
<v Speaker 3>It's not spectacular. It's basically a parking lot for RVs,
<v Speaker 3>for tent campers. It's nicer. Yeah, but in the in
<v Speaker 3>the old days, you could just drive through and you know,
<v Speaker 3>just park and you know, enjoy the park and move on.
<v Speaker 3>But now it's like.
<v Speaker 2>Increasing pressures on every national.
<v Speaker 3>Parks, not just Big then. It's not just then, I
<v Speaker 3>think it's all the parks across the country.
<v Speaker 1>I think too, Like prior to smartphones and navigation systems,
<v Speaker 1>it was a lot more. It seemed a lot more
<v Speaker 1>daunting to get out to these places and not as easy,
<v Speaker 1>you know. I mean it was so easier, so much
<v Speaker 1>easier to get lost, and you couldn't just you know,
<v Speaker 1>where are we going? Oh you'd look at it a
<v Speaker 1>map and you know, on a map that's in your
<v Speaker 1>pocket and figure out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I mean in with Instagram now people are posting, you know,
<v Speaker 3>like I didn't think twenty years ago there was anything
<v Speaker 3>to see it big Ben, Yeah, it's a delhart. What
<v Speaker 3>am I going to go to do there? And then
<v Speaker 3>just seeing the diversity once I got there and people
<v Speaker 3>and I like that.
<v Speaker 2>I think that is cool.
<v Speaker 1>I don't believe in gatekeeping things, but I think there's
<v Speaker 1>got to be limits. And at the end of the day,
<v Speaker 1>I wish there was just more land that people had
<v Speaker 1>access to that was also well regulated.
<v Speaker 2>As much as I hate dealing with cops, I got
<v Speaker 2>and they can be bad in Big ben.
<v Speaker 3>Hey, some of my best friends are.
<v Speaker 1>You meet people doing you see people doing stupid shit
<v Speaker 1>and you're like, well, that's when you need them, you know.
<v Speaker 1>But you know it's a well, I mean, dealing with
<v Speaker 1>cops and national parks. I just remember being there, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I was there in twenty fourteen. God, it was just
<v Speaker 1>like I got stopped so much.
<v Speaker 2>I you know, I did.
<v Speaker 1>I had a dog with me, but it was just
<v Speaker 1>it was a service animal in no worder to throw
<v Speaker 1>him and uh you know, and uh yeah, it was
<v Speaker 1>just it was it was I got I got hassle
<v Speaker 1>bit time. But I was also a little bit more
<v Speaker 1>of a punk aspect then. But the yeah, like I said,
<v Speaker 1>it's a catch twenty two you're happy people are going
<v Speaker 1>out of these places. But you can see how this
<v Speaker 1>is an unsustainable model. There's just so much pressure on
<v Speaker 1>these few areas and it's made all the more tragic
<v Speaker 1>because they're so beautiful and you start to lose some
<v Speaker 1>of that beauty.
<v Speaker 3>And it's just going to get worse. You know. They're
<v Speaker 3>they're cutting staff, and I think they're going to have
<v Speaker 3>to start cutting access, you know, especially us for service
<v Speaker 3>or intention.
<v Speaker 2>They want to make it worse. This is part of
<v Speaker 2>the whole. This is part of the whole.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>You intentionally break the machine and then say, look it's broken,
<v Speaker 1>and now you could just oh, let's throw it out,
<v Speaker 1>you know, we go put in the dumpster.
<v Speaker 2>We don't need anymore. You know, they the printer's broken.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you intentionally broke it, but you know, but now
<v Speaker 1>you've got the justification to, you know, justify getting rid
<v Speaker 1>of it altogether, which is kind of what they're doing
<v Speaker 1>with Social security too.
<v Speaker 2>And it's you know, this is I think these.
<v Speaker 1>Have been on the these have been on the plans
<v Speaker 1>of that the political side for you know, forty or
<v Speaker 1>fifty years, and so everyone's going to pay the price.
<v Speaker 1>And it's mind blowing. It's mind blowing to not want
<v Speaker 1>to like take you know, fund the public like fund
<v Speaker 1>the public good. It's like when the only incentive is
<v Speaker 1>money and there's nothing left to incentivize, like taking care
<v Speaker 1>of the land or the people or the civilization itself.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's that's like a there's a flaw on
<v Speaker 1>human evolution. I think I think it's a flaw in
<v Speaker 1>the human psyche. I think greed and hoarding probably evolved
<v Speaker 1>or the evolutionary benefit, the adaptive benefit was that it
<v Speaker 1>made certain you know whatever, there's certain populations survive. But
<v Speaker 1>but it's got a it's got a flaw, and it's
<v Speaker 1>not it's we're paying the price for that now, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, it's it's definitely a much less
<v Speaker 1>enlightened worldview. It's a more like just bottom of the
<v Speaker 1>brain's them lowest common denominator.
<v Speaker 2>What I would call ship for brain worldview.
<v Speaker 1>And and now it's obsolete. It's like a flaw, you know.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's kind of like the structure of the human shoulder.
<v Speaker 1>You know, people dislocate shoulders a lot. You hear like, ah,
<v Speaker 1>you know orthopedic surgeon talk about well, the other shoulders,
<v Speaker 1>the flaw and human anatomy.
<v Speaker 2>Well, the flaw and the human psyche was great.
<v Speaker 1>It's like now we're paying that and it allows these psychopaths,
<v Speaker 1>these like power hungry psychopaths, these greedy psychopaths to you
<v Speaker 1>get in positions of power to end up dictating things,
<v Speaker 1>and that would that.
<v Speaker 2>Could very well cause the collapse of the species.
<v Speaker 3>So so I was going to go back to another
<v Speaker 3>plant space. You'll notice is on my radio RDUR is
<v Speaker 3>the okatillo. If you look at my observations.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I noticed you got a lot of curious, pretty
<v Speaker 2>curious about the different shapes.
<v Speaker 3>And I'll say the population. I mean you see on
<v Speaker 3>the landscape, you'll see, you know, the twelve to fifteen footers,
<v Speaker 3>you know, just masses of them, but you go walk
<v Speaker 3>amongst them, and you know, you don't see very many
<v Speaker 3>of the three to four footers or even the six incheres.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm just curious as to know.
<v Speaker 2>I've seen some ceilings before, maybe not in the park.
<v Speaker 3>But I mean they do, but it's not in comparison
<v Speaker 3>to all the really large ones you see you don't see, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>like the next generation.
<v Speaker 2>I wonder how old they can live.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe there's more large ones just because that encompasses a
<v Speaker 1>broader range.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah ages. Yeah, because like.
<v Speaker 1>Once they get like twenty years old their adult size,
<v Speaker 1>then that they can live to sixty. Well, you're going
<v Speaker 1>to see a lot more that are in that window
<v Speaker 1>of twenty to sixty years old than in that window
<v Speaker 1>of you know, zero to ten years old or one
<v Speaker 1>to ten.
<v Speaker 2>But it's a it's a cool genius.
<v Speaker 1>Have you seen any of the do you know what
<v Speaker 1>any of the Mexican ones kind of gnarris or like
<v Speaker 1>purpossii or faciculata.
<v Speaker 3>I saw one at the Desert Desert Botanical Garden and Phoenix.
<v Speaker 3>I can't remember which one.
<v Speaker 2>It was probably kind of Nars, the tall one.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, jump tree, Yeah yeah, yeah, that was crazy, totally insane.
<v Speaker 3>It's just a cool plant. And it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>what is going on with this plant? Is it going
<v Speaker 3>to like, you know, have a big boom cycle where
<v Speaker 3>it's like, okay, now we're getting serious. We've got to.
<v Speaker 2>Have you seen many of them dying? I mean, I
<v Speaker 2>guess you can't. It's hard to tell.
<v Speaker 3>It's hard to tell. And I'm wondering, you know, they're
<v Speaker 3>they're going off right now, they're just starting their blooms,
<v Speaker 3>so you know, I'm wondering if you know, are they
<v Speaker 3>thinking this is our last hurrah or you know, because
<v Speaker 3>the yuka's right next to them, and the cruishads right
<v Speaker 3>next to them are dying and really hard to tell
<v Speaker 3>if okutillo is dying because you know, the have leaves
<v Speaker 3>most of the year anyway, So.
<v Speaker 1>Are any botanists down there right now or by I'll
<v Speaker 1>just studying drought stress in any of these plants that you.
<v Speaker 3>Know, not that I'm aware of.
<v Speaker 2>Is the park really welcoming the researchers.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, I mean I think that's part of the mission,
<v Speaker 3>is to let you know, if people have a valid project,
<v Speaker 3>you know, give them a permit, let them study what
<v Speaker 3>they need to study.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you don't see horned lizards down there very much,
<v Speaker 1>to you, Friendish summer.
<v Speaker 3>Not very often. I can remember driving leaving the park
<v Speaker 3>one year, so it must have been late April, and
<v Speaker 3>of course I'm full in my RV and you know,
<v Speaker 3>making as quick of a stop as I can because
<v Speaker 3>there's like one right in the middle of the road
<v Speaker 3>and I'm out there like directing traffic to stop and
<v Speaker 3>picking the guy shooting him off the road.
<v Speaker 2>Cool.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, probably, you know, in ten years, you know, less
<v Speaker 3>than six sightings of them, so just.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's wild too. I don't know what it is.
<v Speaker 1>I don't buy that it's just the ants. Are there
<v Speaker 1>fire ants in the park.
<v Speaker 3>Along the river you can get into them, but you
<v Speaker 3>know it's too dry for the rest of the park. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>maybe in the Jesus maybe they don't think I've run
<v Speaker 3>into them there.
<v Speaker 2>So I wonder what's causing the decline. If it's just yeah, grassland.
<v Speaker 3>You know I'd heard in the past, you know it's
<v Speaker 3>you know, the pesticides or whatnot. You know, you're killing
<v Speaker 3>the ants and then the horn ted's live or eat
<v Speaker 3>the ants, and it's like, well, we're not throwing pesticides down,
<v Speaker 3>you know, randomly in the desert. So there's something something
<v Speaker 3>going on.
<v Speaker 1>Or maybe if it could be too if the grasslands
<v Speaker 1>have gone away, maybe they needed grasslands to survive. But
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'll see different Franosoma species and you know,
<v Speaker 1>do you see them in the Mahave all the time.
<v Speaker 1>They can be quite common. But I wonder if it's
<v Speaker 1>some sort of fungus or something that's gone unnoticed or what.
<v Speaker 2>But it's crazy. All over Texas. You hear people talk
<v Speaker 2>about how they've expen it actually decreased the populations of
<v Speaker 2>the client. I just wonder why.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you mentioned fungus. I got an email from Anna Strong,
<v Speaker 3>she's the Texas Parks and Wildlife, the rare plant botanist,
<v Speaker 3>and she was mentioning that the screwby Mesquite, they're detecting
<v Speaker 3>the fungus in that and there's a decline in that population.
<v Speaker 1>If they identified what species it is, is it like
<v Speaker 1>what species?
<v Speaker 2>Fund guess? Yes, is it?
<v Speaker 1>It's probably not native to North America. If it's causing
<v Speaker 1>massive decline.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I don't know. I'll forward you the paper.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that'd be interesting to see.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so I've been I hadn't heard about that in
<v Speaker 3>the past, so I kind of had like a you know,
<v Speaker 3>just informal anytime I would see one, I'd pop it
<v Speaker 3>on eye naturalists. And from what I can tell, the
<v Speaker 3>park population seemed to be okay. But you know, it's
<v Speaker 3>something I'll be keeping an eye on. Just yeah, curiosity.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what I've noticed is most of.
<v Speaker 1>The most of the or fungal pathogens that cause decline
<v Speaker 1>in North American forests are all except for like pine beetles.
<v Speaker 1>I think almost all of them are not from the
<v Speaker 1>North American continent. I guess there's a beetle that's causing
<v Speaker 1>it's affecting oaks in California that is just from Arizona.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean I'm.
<v Speaker 1>Curious about that too, because how has that beetle not
<v Speaker 1>made it to California in the last hundred thousand years.
<v Speaker 1>That's hard to believe, you know, But I mean, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>who knows, or it could just I mean sometimes native
<v Speaker 1>pathogens will cause you know, they'll be like a human
<v Speaker 1>caused impact that's enabling them to thrive.
<v Speaker 2>More like if mistletoes.
<v Speaker 1>Are affecting oaks, and the pollutions weakening the oaks, like
<v Speaker 1>if there's oaks in like the mountains outside La or something,
<v Speaker 1>you know. But yeah, it's curious, man, Yes, send me
<v Speaker 1>the paper when you get a chance. What was what
<v Speaker 1>is I'm seeing? Dea Havardi. I don't know if I've
<v Speaker 1>seen this one before. Where did you encounter that?
<v Speaker 3>That's a pretty cool little plant. It's in various parts
<v Speaker 3>of the plant of the park. Definitely Dagger Flat Road
<v Speaker 3>or the middle of river Road. You can see it
<v Speaker 3>out there. It's kind of a wide distribution.
<v Speaker 1>But it's it's pretty I mean it's in South Texas
<v Speaker 1>in the Big Bend region, but it's pretty restricted.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I call that the gurly plant with the pink
<v Speaker 3>and the purple on it.
<v Speaker 2>There's so many cool members of polymonies. Look at fucking
<v Speaker 2>blue pollen blue as you're going, you call it Girley.
<v Speaker 3>The little girl, because you know, all little girls seem
<v Speaker 3>to be attracted to pink and purple. I don't know why.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if that's universal or just the North
<v Speaker 3>America thing.
<v Speaker 2>That's a cool that's a cool one.
<v Speaker 1>I guess there's a It looks like there's a population
<v Speaker 1>outside a month lay to west of the month, near
<v Speaker 1>closure to sal Poe. But that's another good thing in
<v Speaker 1>AD is great for is mapping plants and seeing their
<v Speaker 1>their distribution and just yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I think I saw that within the last couple of
<v Speaker 3>months on a Lingo Ranch road. It was just like
<v Speaker 3>right on the side of the road. I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 3>driving down the road, you know, doing this, doing the
<v Speaker 3>speed limit. You just slammed on the brakes. It's like,
<v Speaker 3>what the heck is that?
<v Speaker 2>How did you?
<v Speaker 1>How did you get into plants to begin with. I
<v Speaker 1>mean you said it was mostly what for like edibles
<v Speaker 1>or just gardening stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Then you stepped mostly natives or.
<v Speaker 3>I think once I got to Big Ben it was like, Wow,
<v Speaker 3>there's there's a lot going on out here, and just
<v Speaker 3>you know, wanted to learn as much as I can.
<v Speaker 2>Do you do you study any of the plants in
<v Speaker 2>Alabama when you go there for a summer.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, we obviously go out and bought andize wherever we're at. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that seems like the coolest thing we did was we
<v Speaker 3>went to the Green Swamp and I think it's either
<v Speaker 3>North or South Carolina, but that's where the venus fly
<v Speaker 3>trap is.
<v Speaker 2>Oh natives their native to. Where was that, Oh that's
<v Speaker 2>North Carolina.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so right there, I think within like a fifty
<v Speaker 3>mile radius of Wilmington something like that in North Carolina.
<v Speaker 3>And so that was that was really cool to see it,
<v Speaker 3>you know in the ground, because you know, I bought
<v Speaker 3>one at home depot and I killed it.
<v Speaker 2>One and I got under lights in water like inside.
<v Speaker 2>My kid's always going in it to set it off
<v Speaker 2>like feat it flies. I got this mosquito trap.
<v Speaker 1>That I love my feed I guess I got a
<v Speaker 1>couple of carnivorous plants people have given me. And this
<v Speaker 1>mosquito trap just uses this this chemical scent to attract mosquito.
<v Speaker 1>It's amazing. And the chemical scent really smells bad. It
<v Speaker 1>smells like you put like a foreigner pound dude in
<v Speaker 1>a treadmill and then twenty minutes and just took a
<v Speaker 1>squeegee along his back and collected all that stuff and
<v Speaker 1>put it on a little cotton swab or something. But
<v Speaker 1>but I'll collect the mosquitos and then dump amunt of
<v Speaker 1>pinguicula that I've got under lights two. And the thing
<v Speaker 1>is doing really it's like grapefruit size.
<v Speaker 2>It's huge. It loves it.
<v Speaker 1>But uh, I guess there's a population of venus fly
<v Speaker 1>traps that was introduced in Florida. I guess they're not
<v Speaker 1>native there, but it's like whatever, man let it.
<v Speaker 3>You know they're there, Yeah, two miles more, it's native.
<v Speaker 2>That's a cool one.
<v Speaker 1>That whole coastal plain area of northern of North Carolina
<v Speaker 1>is really interesting. I saw him, and I saw him
<v Speaker 1>in Sidhu in twenty nineteen. I went out there for
<v Speaker 1>a wedding. I normally don't endorse marriage, but in this case.
<v Speaker 3>They didn't, so it's too at least a divorce too good.
<v Speaker 2>College is friends, it always does.
<v Speaker 1>I mean it really, they're still doing pretty well, I think,
<v Speaker 1>but I mean every well at least to divorce and
<v Speaker 1>then like being entwined in like legal battles and just
<v Speaker 1>ugly shit, you know, and like it's uh, yeah, but
<v Speaker 1>that's I mean, my kid's mom and I never got
<v Speaker 1>married and we're still friends. So thank god, all.
<v Speaker 3>Are you going to jump on another tangent? Since she
<v Speaker 3>said yeah, cent tri aps another project I worked on,
<v Speaker 3>I don't go. Couple weeks ago, I was out with
<v Speaker 3>Anna Strong again and she has some dogs that they're
<v Speaker 3>training to sniff out endangered cactus in the landscape. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>not not necessarily for poachers, but just so that we
<v Speaker 3>can get a better handle on the population.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder what scent is unique to them that they're
<v Speaker 1>There's got to be a specific chemical.
<v Speaker 3>Compound that I think they're having a harder time than
<v Speaker 3>the trainers expected, but I mean they are able to
<v Speaker 3>find them, which to me is just amazing.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that is. I had a friend who worked in
<v Speaker 2>pest control. They were using bedbug sniffing dougs.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for bedbug infestations in the San Francisco Bay area,
<v Speaker 1>which you can imagine are you know, through.
<v Speaker 3>The roof, but okay, I'm not going there, Okay anyway.
<v Speaker 1>And a new low callis aero salinis. That's when I've
<v Speaker 1>never I don't think i've seen it.
<v Speaker 3>The big un rings them.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, these are nick tags.
<v Speaker 1>Their nictagenacy are tough, and they all seem to love
<v Speaker 1>gypsum and calcareous soils. But some of these have like
<v Speaker 1>and some of them have like really coreaceous leaves, like
<v Speaker 1>it feels like a leather glove that was left in
<v Speaker 1>the sun for like six months, and they could really
<v Speaker 1>tough unique leaf texture.
<v Speaker 2>Was was ario selinis like that? Or is that one
<v Speaker 2>of the annual ones?
<v Speaker 3>One switch you got, Yeah, the one it's got that
<v Speaker 3>sticky band going up the stem. It's like, what's that
<v Speaker 3>all about?
<v Speaker 1>Probably, yeah, maybe it's to prevent answer, but I don't know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I guess fly paper or something. I see a lot
<v Speaker 1>of sticky plants, especially like on sand, like in the sandsheet,
<v Speaker 1>like palaphoxya Hookriyana. That's a really cool one. It's like
<v Speaker 1>a six foot tall pellaphoxy. Have you ever seen that
<v Speaker 1>one before. If you're ever next time you're driving east,
<v Speaker 1>if well, if we get rained, ever, you know, stop
<v Speaker 1>at some of the sand sheet deposits because it's they
<v Speaker 1>kind of parallel the coastal plane the Gulf, and they've
<v Speaker 1>all all the sand has unique endemics on it, like
<v Speaker 1>crazy crazy plants, like they don't occur very many other places.
<v Speaker 1>But pellapoxy hookriana is like incredibly sticky, like it's got
<v Speaker 1>and I think those those glandular tricholmas first, like they've
<v Speaker 1>got two adaptive benefits, one being that you know, you're
<v Speaker 1>growing on sand, it's more stressful, that it's drier, it's hotter,
<v Speaker 1>and that helps retain moisture as well as helps trap
<v Speaker 1>fog maybe, but also it's you're trapping insects and now
<v Speaker 1>you're getting in the predatory insects like wasp and stuff
<v Speaker 1>learn that, so they come to feed on the insects
<v Speaker 1>you're trapping, and then in doing so, they're also they're
<v Speaker 1>going to go for any herbivorous in you know, microrbivore,
<v Speaker 1>a little caterpillar or something too. And so you're kind
<v Speaker 1>of like not only stopping the insects, but attracting the
<v Speaker 1>bouncers to attracting securities. So I don't know who knows.
<v Speaker 1>I just it was a cool thing to see. It's
<v Speaker 1>like six and a half foot tall palafox with big
<v Speaker 1>pink daisy like flower size of a golf ball, maybe
<v Speaker 1>a little bigger, with dead bugs stuck all up.
<v Speaker 2>And down a stem. Anyway, I won't drag this out
<v Speaker 2>too long.
<v Speaker 1>I just want to see what else, because you see
<v Speaker 1>a lot of interesting stuff and uh Stevia Ovada, I
<v Speaker 1>don't even know it wasn't where was it?
<v Speaker 2>Where was this?
<v Speaker 3>What's in the in the highlands? And then damn probably
<v Speaker 3>off the pinnacles trial.
<v Speaker 1>There are some there's a ship ton of plants that
<v Speaker 1>you own that this is the only part of Texas
<v Speaker 1>you get them in. They're either totally restricted here or
<v Speaker 1>the entire rest of populations in Mexico.
<v Speaker 2>What is that? There's a there's a legume.
<v Speaker 1>It's in faboide, so it's got like the pabulinaceous flowers
<v Speaker 1>like banner wings and keel looks like a little yellow
<v Speaker 1>pea flower and it's a shrub.
<v Speaker 2>It's super rare.
<v Speaker 3>Oh Genastiicium, Yeah, that might be it?
<v Speaker 1>Is it that is a Guinness stadium or is it
<v Speaker 1>the There's two that are that are kind of rare.
<v Speaker 2>Have you encountered those?
<v Speaker 3>Not in the park?
<v Speaker 2>Not in the park? What is the Yeah, what's the
<v Speaker 2>other one? I might have you know what I might
<v Speaker 2>have to go. I've seen it before outside outside of
<v Speaker 2>the park. What are I mean? Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>What are some of the like other like super rare
<v Speaker 1>plants besides the orchids, like the more lowland desert plants.
<v Speaker 2>That you encountered.
<v Speaker 3>Well, some of the listed plants mostly are cactus, but
<v Speaker 3>they're not hm hmm. I guess they're rare, but they're
<v Speaker 3>easy to find.
<v Speaker 2>They're just indemic space.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I don't think that's why they're listed. But I
<v Speaker 3>mean it took me forever to find, like the passion
<v Speaker 3>flower passive floor to tinue logo. But once I found it,
<v Speaker 3>I started seeing it in different places. But I mean
<v Speaker 3>that was like my you know, target plant for like
<v Speaker 3>a year. It's like I got to find this plant.
<v Speaker 1>It's like a desert passion flower. What about the Is
<v Speaker 1>it just the leaves because they got that weird look.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the weird look and it's got a real you know,
<v Speaker 3>I was used to the giant purple one that you
<v Speaker 3>can buy at home depot or whatever. And you know
<v Speaker 3>this was, you know, less than quarter sized flower. Just
<v Speaker 3>super cool to see.
<v Speaker 1>But then you look up close to it. Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>a passion flower. It's a little corona and everything are
<v Speaker 1>those those are so those aren't uncommon in Big Bend.
<v Speaker 2>They're just easy.
<v Speaker 3>I think they're uncommon in Big ben But you know
<v Speaker 3>they probably have a big distribution, which is you know
<v Speaker 3>why they wouldn't be listed.
<v Speaker 2>They've got weird leaves too.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, kind of yeah, a little bit like that, a
<v Speaker 3>little bit like a elongated batt.
<v Speaker 1>Easton was telling me he had some theory that that
<v Speaker 1>was like a case of of leaf mimicry, of like
<v Speaker 1>the adaptive benefit of looking like if a past the
<v Speaker 1>floor is vinding up through a burbarous maybe it would
<v Speaker 1>be less likely to get eaten because no one nothings
<v Speaker 1>to eat burbers.
<v Speaker 3>It's very pleasant, we found out yesterday. Unfortunately the hard
<v Speaker 3>way they were I was telling you earlier. They're clearing
<v Speaker 3>the rear. Grand Electric was clearing the path from the
<v Speaker 3>right away so they could work on the poles. So
<v Speaker 3>they had a bulldozer out there and we walked after
<v Speaker 3>the bulldozer and there was like this bright yellow on
<v Speaker 3>this route. We're like, what the heck is that from?
<v Speaker 3>It was, Yeah, that's.
<v Speaker 2>The berbering compound, that medicinal compound.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>There's a plant called Oregon grape is the common name.
<v Speaker 1>It's mahonia. I forget the name of it. I forget
<v Speaker 1>the species, but it's it grows out west and it's
<v Speaker 1>like a big like the herbal.
<v Speaker 3>Medicine, the same yellow, kind of an orange yellow. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And there's Asian species that are much taller or much
<v Speaker 1>like more shrub like that that are popular in herbal
<v Speaker 1>medicine out there. But I think mostly it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>when you're sick, it's like you drink a tonic. It
<v Speaker 1>iss but not just you know. But I've encountered with
<v Speaker 1>a lot of herbalists, especially some younger herbalists, the things
<v Speaker 1>they like, whether you're sick or not, just go out
<v Speaker 1>take it and make a potion out of it.
<v Speaker 3>There are very few things all eat in the wild.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I was never into forging.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever gets people in the botany's cool, but it's like
<v Speaker 1>I want the plants that have been through ten thousand
<v Speaker 1>years of selection pressure by humans, of selective breeding, you know,
<v Speaker 1>for nutrition and taste. And unless there's like a you know,
<v Speaker 1>world War three going on or post apocalyptic scenario and
<v Speaker 1>I have the misfortune to still be alive, I have
<v Speaker 1>no interest in, yeah, trying to eat roots, and you.
<v Speaker 3>Have a hard time just removing plants. I mean, yesterday
<v Speaker 3>was pretty traumatic, you know, watching the Buldezer go through.
<v Speaker 3>And then for that dog project, Anna wanted me to.
<v Speaker 3>She knew some people that had well actually the Wildlife
<v Speaker 3>Management area and she knew some people in Trilingua that
<v Speaker 3>had some Amrapa census that they would allow us to
<v Speaker 3>dig up. And it's like that was that was hard for.
<v Speaker 2>Me to what was going on, Oh, to dig out
<v Speaker 2>something for training.
<v Speaker 3>To train them before they got there.
<v Speaker 1>I used to be like that vouchers. I would never collects.
<v Speaker 2>I can why, But now I'm yeah, Now I'm like
<v Speaker 2>it's so important. You got to get a specimen. Yeah, but.
<v Speaker 3>Doctor Powell wants me to do that, and I don't
<v Speaker 3>mind doing it. But a lot of times I see
<v Speaker 3>plants and they were like one off and it's like
<v Speaker 3>I'm not taking that.
<v Speaker 1>There's definitely that if it's a small population. Yeah, you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna you would obviously have an impact. And that's another
<v Speaker 1>thing too. If I'm collecting specimens too, you know, I
<v Speaker 1>won't unless there's a lot of them, I won't get
<v Speaker 1>the whole route. I won't, you know, I'll just take
<v Speaker 1>a stem or something something that someone might need for
<v Speaker 1>DNA later or just to get an idea of what
<v Speaker 1>the plant is like, and then you can write, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's a you know in the in the description on
<v Speaker 1>the label, like it was a shrub or was it whatever.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you don't need the whole specimen because I'm
<v Speaker 1>not trying to.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it seems like that's been done right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I want to need this something.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, Well, thanks a lot for being down to
<v Speaker 2>come around this.
<v Speaker 1>Is there anything else you would like to let people know?
<v Speaker 3>I think we pretty much hit on all the all
<v Speaker 3>the good stuff.
<v Speaker 1>If people want to follow you, are you on integram
<v Speaker 1>or any of the social media outlets besides.
<v Speaker 3>O naturalists mostly naturalists.
<v Speaker 2>And that's just dev M.
<v Speaker 1>If people want to look at some of the cool
<v Speaker 1>stuff you're seeing in the Big Bend area.
<v Speaker 2>Ye, well, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thank you
<v Speaker 2>for coming all right, thanks