Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't A Low-Brow, Crass Approach to Plant Ecology/Evolution as muttered by a Misanthropic Chicago Italian. Officially Banned from Missouri Botanic Garden.
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NY times Best-selling Author. 6 outta 10 PhD Candidates Can't Stand Me. COMMENT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

09/11/2026

Come Help Us Plant Native Trees at the International Museum of Art and Science on McAllen Texas.

Tomorrow, Saturday September 12 at 830/9 am

We'll be planting native Mesquite, Ebony and Palo Verde to provide shade for the building and relief from the massive heat island of the parking lot/surrounding asphalt.

We will dig 3' foot diameter holes and make them 3" below grade so that they can be filled with water from a hose/rainfall to prevent the water from running off and ensuring that it sinks into the ground and can be absorbed (the "Brad Lancaster Method").

Be there and help us, and purchase a visit to the museum afterwards it's a dope spot!

TABLEAU OF PAIN : useless, shadeless non-native palm trees and dying crape myrtles line many of the streets of Mission, ...
09/09/2026

TABLEAU OF PAIN : useless, shadeless non-native palm trees and dying crape myrtles line many of the streets of Mission, Texas, while beneath them the sprouts of the native Mesquite tree repeatedly sprout up only to get mowed and w**d whacked down again. Mesquite is literally the PERFECT tree for Texas : it is tough as hell, incredibly drought tolerant and provides edible fruits with a pulp that can be turned into a number of foods, yet centuries of propaganda have brainwashed people into hating it. It produces spines to protect itself from the large herbivores it evolved with, but stops producing them once trees reach maturity. Its graceful spreading arms provide abundant shade.

Crape myrtles and shadeless palm trees are two of the most common trees in the Rio Grande Valley. The former always dies without irrigation and the latter provides no shade whatsoever and is only planted because the look of it implies "Paradise" and tropical settings, and also because it was part of the "Magic Valley" booster-ism from 120 years ago whereby midwesterners came down to exploit cheap labor from the Mexican populace.

When you don't have any shade, it makes it hard to get people to go outside, and I hate to be the one to tell you that one hour at the gym everyday is not enough when you are sitting inside or in a car for the other 13 waking hours. There is an obesity epidemic down here. Being that almost all the streets lack shade, it's no wonder why.

Mission and much of the RGV looks like this...but it doesn't need to.

We need to start embracing our native legume trees like mesquite, ebony, Palo Verde, Tenaza, and Huisache. Planting Crepe Myrtles and palm trees is a form of self-hate.

09/08/2026

Falfurrias is only known for TWO THINGS: One of them is the silver leaf sunflower, which you can see fields of blooming right now along highway 281 in South Texas. This is a beast of a sunflower, growing up to 15 ft tall and providing tons of seed for birds. It is covered in wool, which help it grow in one of the consistently hottest places in North America on the South Texas sand sheet. Meet Helianthus argophyllus.

09/07/2026

What might have evolutionarily selected for the Zig-Zag branching of this cool Texas fern, Pellaea ovata?

09/06/2026

Botanizing the Alamo, peewee's Bike, Ozzy getting arrested, how to vandalize Nandina, and more. Nice day in San Antonio.

We need to be teaching kids here in the RGV the names of native plants, how important they are, and the important servic...
09/05/2026

We need to be teaching kids here in the RGV the names of native plants, how important they are, and the important services they provide (helping water infiltrate ground rather than run off, mitigating flooding, providing shade for the ground so that it doesn't heat up and turn into a heat island, supporting our rare birds which bring in the tourists and $). Further we need to teach kids that indoctrinating people to plant non-native crepe myrtles, live oaks and tall skinny shadeless palm trees in the Rio Grande Valley is a direct form of teaching self-hate.

Calling the incredible native plant communities here "messy" IS SELF-HATE.

I tried to get it all...... uniform spacing, straight lines, butt-plug and "horse molar" hedging, fastigiate cultivars, ...
09/05/2026

I tried to get it all...... uniform spacing, straight lines, butt-plug and "horse molar" hedging, fastigiate cultivars, variegated leaves. I'm sure I left something out. There's so much to hate about modern Landscaping.

09/01/2026

Join me and Alan Rockefeller on a trip to Peru. This will be an educational plant and mushroom foray exploring the fungal diversity of the high Andes. We will reach heights of 14,000 ft but we will acclimate gradually.

Schedule is as follows:

Nov 19-28 (fly into Lima on the 18th)

Part 1 of Trip : Dry (west) side of the Andes :

Trichocereus peruvianus/Puya raimondii

Part 2 : Páramo (High-elevation, foggy)

Part 3 : Wet Side of the Andes(High Orchid/Fungal Diversity)

COST : $2700

MEALS, LODGING, GROUND TRANSPORT

PROVIDED.

AIRFARE NOT PROVIDED. FLY INTO LIMA.
You wil be forced to set up an inaturalist account or you will be flogged.

Sign up on the crime pays website. Payment is primarily thrtough Zelle, though we can do Stripe and CC too, but will have to vharge the 3% fee.

08/28/2026

Great to see a nice mix of mostly natives with only a handful of *non-invasive* exotics at Denver Botanic Garden. Though they are generally few in the US, I now have another botanical garden I *WOULDN'T* try to get kicked out of on my list.

A few of the plants here are :
Agave kaibabensis
Dasylirion texanum
Hesperocyparis montana
Cistus laurifolius
Arbutus xalapensis
Numerous species of Salvia
Berberis haematocarpa

Thanks to Panayoti, my new adopted Greek uncle for showing me around.

Megamexico Shirts are available now on the bonfire store.... featuring the some of the most notable plants from the regi...
08/26/2026

Megamexico Shirts are available now on the bonfire store.... featuring the some of the most notable plants from the region : Taxodium mucronatum, the genus Tagetes, Lophophora williamsii, Agave and the genus Quercus.

Text on the back reads, in English and Spanish, a quote by the famous late Mexican botanist Jerzy Rzedowski:

"No conviene, por otra parte, perder de vista el hecho de que la repartición geográfica de los organismos por lo general hace caso omiso de las divisiones políticas de la corteza de nuestro planeta; en cambio, con frecuencia está ligada con la delimitación de regiones naturales, definidas por condiciones fisiográficas, climáticas, edáficas, etc.Para ser congruente con tal circunstancia y dar cuenta de muchos endemismos verdaderos, será necesario en este capítulo extender las fronteras del país y así, se recurrirá al término Megaméxico, cuando se incluyan las partes de las zonas áridas sonorenses, chihuahuenses y tamaulipecas, que pertenecen a los Estados Unidos de América; al término "Megaméxico 2", cuando se abarque el territorio centroamericano hasta el norte de Nicaragua; y al término "Megaméxico 3" para comprender ambas extensiones"

"On the other hand, it is important to remember that the geographic distribution of organisms generally ignores the political divisions of the planet's surface and is instead frequently linked to the delimitation of natural regions defined by physiographic, climatic, edaphic, etc. conditions.
To be consistent with such circumstances and to account for many true endemisms, it will be necessary in this chapter to extend the country's borders, and thus the term "Megamexico" will be used when including parts of the arid zones of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Tamaulipas, which belong to the United States of America; the term "Megamexico 2" when covering the Central American territory as far north as Nicaragua; and the term "Megamexico 3" to include both areas (see maps in Figure 2).

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