Jewel-Osco Preferred Card, Arrest Nostalgia, & Cloud Forests.

For some reason this video never got posted after it was recorded in February, so here we go...
As we ascend the Sierra de Bahoruco in the Dominican Republic, we recount an arrest story from Chicago in the 90s.
We spend four hours ascending up the slope of a cloud-forest on an extremely rough road near the Haitian border, starring a wind-pollinated tree poppy, Bocconia frutescens and a scandent, hummingbird pollinated vining Lobelia rotundifolia.
This episode ends in an Agave/Pine Forest at sunset, with some nice money shots of the weird composite genus #Elekmania.
Your contributions support this content. It sounds clichéd, but it's true. Whether it's travel expenses, vehicle repair, or medical costs for urushiol poisoning (or rockfalls, beestings, hand slices, toxic sap, etc), your financial support allows this content to continue so the beauty of Earth's flora can be made accessible to the rest of us in the degenerate public. At a time when so much is disappearing beneath the human footprint, CPBBD is willing to do whatever it takes to document these plant species and the ecological communities they are a part of before they're gone for good.
Plants make people feel good. Plants quell homicidal (and suicidal!) thoughts. To support Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, consider donating a few bucks to the venmo account "societyishell" or the PayPal account email [e-mail]...
Or consider becoming a patreon supporter @ :
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Buy some CPBBD merch (shirts, hats, hoodies n' what the shit) available for sale at :
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Plants ID questions or reading list suggestions can be sent to [e-mail]
Thanks, GFY.

[@1hayes1]

I lived in the Dominican Republic for a year when I was ten, almost fifty years ago. My family explored the entire island, so I have deep memories of many of the landscapes you've shown. There was a biology teacher at my school who was having a great time exploring the island with his students until he pointed out some cannabis plants to them. I don't know if it was being cultivated or if it was growing wild, but word got out and he was fired. Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't.

[@iggypower2672]

"look at that god damn fern wall" you are saving me from crippling depression. thank you so much!

[@evilsharkey8954]

I hope you live near a place with a good conservatory. Their tropical houses can really help with depression, too, especially the smell... unless they’ve got one of those corpse flowers blooming, but they don’t bloom very often.

[@Buzzygirl63]

That borage is just a gorgeous blue color!

[@aprilkurtz1589]

I went for a short walk through a woodlot near my house, and the Spring ephemerals are out. Gorgeous. It was very calming, too.

[@dreadfullguppy19]

one of my favourite subjects superbly presented by a true master of the English language.. sir I salute you.

[@sergiyradonezhsky634]

gotta admit there's a certain charm to his vulgar take on very scientific language though, ain't it?

[@nsahler]

dude I've spent the last 6 months working on a phylogenetic tree of Antillean plants based on their indigenous caribbean names (taino, eyeri, etc - it's more of a languages project than a botany project). This video series is so perfect :)

[@TonyisToking]

Can we fund a 4K camera for Tony. This stuff is so mesmerizingly beautiful. Would love to see it in 4K

[@adobedoug2564]

Pretty sure at one point I saw Joey say he’d tried uploading @4k and it was too much trouble. I’m way to lazy to try to find it.

[@evilsharkey8954]

A couple of his desert videos looked much higher res, and they were lagging a bit on my crappy WiFi, too, so maybe he does have a 4K camera.

[@danielirvin4420]

I'm amazed that those areas covered by sphagnum can make a Caribbean island look like some of the forests here in Nova Scotia.

[@guitarnutbolinuli5788]

I've never seen venation like that of the Melastomataceae before, so cool. All the vids are great but these from DR are next level beautiful, thanks for a great 22 minutes.

[@obsoleteoptics]

One time in college, a buddy of mine and I were on our way to his buddy's house to smoke some blunts after class late one night, and as we were stopped behind his friends getting directions to the spot, the Chicago cops pulled up on us, pulled us out of my truck cuz they thought we were scoring dope, searched us and my truck, and when they found nothing, the cop comes around with my buddy's backpack in one hand and his other hand inside of the backpack, until he pulls out a gun and asks, "Whose gun is this?" And without missing a beat, my homie says, "That's _your_ gun!" As I lock eyes with the cop's empty holster, the cop puts his gun back in his holster, hands the backpack over, and the other cop undoes our handcuffs and says, "Have a good night, gentlemen." We laughed about that all the way to graduation. They pulled some Super Troopers shit on us! Made our night!

[@serrakilduff6580]

I'm used to watching your videos on my phone, or on my ten year old dementia- suffering laptop. I just had the opportunity to watch on a stupidly large hd tv- and it's like I just got glasses. So nice to see all the leaf and flower characteristics. And oh that Weinmannia!

[@georgemanley8247]

This was awesome, all kinds of interesting plants. Thanks for sharing, just what I needed to save me from being beaten down by life. 😎

[@freddiemarquez9736]

*Chicago accent* Very salacious content you got here.

[@Montino4Ever]

Thank you plant daddy 🖤

[@cgriggsiv]

Unfortunately for me I didn't do a damn thing last weekend I was so damn exhausted from work I fell asleep after I got home on Fridays I didn't wake up again until Saturday at 5:30 in the afternoon so Sunday all I do was shopping and did my laundry and slept some more Today is Monday I'm still exhausted and it's a wonderful sight to see your video keep up the good work I really need them

[@Ficklstein]

These videos are helping me through a pretty rough time, keeping me level; love your content & your style 🌦

[@brainwashingdetergent4322]

Me too, the guy reminds me of my pa!

[@Bambi_Sapphic]

That's a standard I can live by. "He looked kinda sketchy, but he had a dog so he can't be that bad" That's some truth right there.

[@Youngstomata]

*dahg

[@twoheadedchicken7904]

also the 5 year old who went into the white van

[@majordendrocopos]

As long as the dog isn’t a pit bull with a spiky collar......

[@userhandle3378]

@@Youngstomata you like dahgs?

[@liampassmore501]

That's some Bay Area thinking tho: " Wear a hoodie, eat a burrito and you'll be fine." Am digging the whole understory element

[@newmanmansell760]

Not boring at all🙏Your botanical knowledge and commentary are incommensurable👍🌟

[@joshs8738]

Jfc...it's like watching an old family friend! Raised in SF/Bay area and all my family are from Chicago and area there bouts. Love watching your vids.

[@greenmachinesweden]

Another great vid. Thanks for sharing.

[@brianballa3086]

hey look thanks for sharing... great stuff...

[@caroline_sunshine]

Fantastic video. Love your content.

[@ripoffrecords]

What a great forest - nice to see so many popular garden species all in the one place. Very special.

[@QuestForDetails]

this is like nature exploration, for grown ups , amazed at how much you got stored up there, you'd love my area , I got some areas around me ( pope valley area- north bay ) rare non burnt still, true old chaparral, lots of flowers out after the fires that have been latent for decades.

[@MockKnizzle008]

The coloration on those ferns at 12:30 is fucking gorgeous.

[@bigbrungus5284]

I'd be really interested to see the fungal diversity up there!

[@shawntron38]

Loved your last cloud forest excursion. Beautiful ecosystem: )

[@YarubbAlsager]

Good job that's a beautiful episode

[@omidiranpanah]

Great stuff as always. Thank you now gfy;)))

[@stewall101]

Thanks for another insightful video.

[@soulpark3128]

*I am now subscribed and have your videos in a Playlist so I can listen to your voice when I'm homesick.* *I'm supposed to visit Chicago soon after moving away almost a year ago.*

[@lindashankland5056]

You’re videos are never boring in my book. I can relate to how the Bay Area used to be a nice place to live, having seen the changes myself since childhood. It’s a shame. Anyway, your videos are always welcome, thank you!

[@haecheverri35]

As always love when you explore the neotropics! Even if you don’t know the specific species, identifying to genus and family is amazing!

[@Soul_Patrol]

love those cloud forest plants also thanks for getting me into this shit man, this spring has been a blast so far. Learning all about the world I live in and the organisms that make it possible, I wish I gave a fuck about this stuff earlier in life.

[@dizzious]

Blown away by the color of the cynoglossum amabile and I was gonna question who pollenates it but Google shows me a pic of a honeybee gettin busy with it so I guess insects. Didn't expect to see an Oak in this locale but spotted that little one at like 5:40. And the cestrum humile! Never woulda thought asteracea but those flowers totally fit the bill. Great video as usual dude you rock

[@theresarosado]

I lived 9 months at the base of an epiphytic rainforest at Mt Mogote west of Jarabacoa a Christian reform school in the 80s. They gave us a break one day from repetitive calisthenics and chores and drove us blindfolded to the service road to the trail ascending the peak. I Could tell we were not too far west of the school because of the location of airplane warning lights on a tower at the east ridge of Mogote. Amazing cloud line forest and numerous microclimate zones. Rainy season is cold but the sun always comes out in the afternoon-Republica Dominicana.

[@AGDinCA]

What a beautiful landscape!

[@saguaroboy]

I can sympathize re your hometown botanical garden. Desert botanical garden in Phoenix was an AWESOME, affordable place to knock around on moon cabbage. Now it's about ten thousand golden barrels. So it's world class or something.

[@BadKittus]

12:50 thad bird is fantabulous 13:43 Mountain Whistler is perfect.

[@ninjaperson27]

I have never seen a weirder looking moss-absolutely beautfiul. I wish there was an easy way to preserve these videos, because god knows whats going to happen to the native vegetation even 20 years from now, let alone 50...

[@FayeVert]

Whoever downvoted this must have been a Dominick's shopper.

[@mungmungie]

We have ways of finding those people......

[@corki9930]

Dominick's still exists??

[@dizzious]

Nobody intentionally downvotes this guy's vids. The like and dislike buttons are only about 1cm apart on a phone screen - if you're drunk it's pretty easy to accidentally hit the wrong one. Just sayin'.

[@danielpirone8028]

Love me some begonias.

[@iangillham9647]

ALWAYS interesting!

[@professoroak.833]

my poor family thinks i am watching these crazy Xgames vids clips with all my OH WOW , noo ways! i think i am little to into plants atm. that almost blue borage bastard was niceees

[@evilsharkey8954]

And the leaves on that melastome!

[@tosstoness]

i look out over a very unique rain forest here in the southern hemisphere always changing bringing the cloud from the pacific and blanketing the hill around me magic

[@stephenpmurphy591]

A video on a cloud forest is a wonderful escape from...... Tony, as six decade old SF bay area native I hear ya! Climate change induce chronic drought, serious reduction of the Pacific fog bank! Heartbreaking watching a beautiful region become miles of human tumor sprawl. Only a few crumbs left. What's in store for the future?

[@sergejtanjabranden9623]

This is such a mind-fuck for me. Being from scandinavia the forest, especially at higher altitudes look very similar. There are a LOT of plant life that I recognise from my back yard, especially the pines, mosses and lichens, but next to that you've got crazy tropical shit like big ferns, begonias and agaves right there. Crazy. Love it!

[@MultiFelicias]

I love that u wrote the names on the bottom, I cant spell for shit , need that thank u

[@QuestForDetails]

caught me off guard , but bad ass adventure and narration, you got your own style for sure, new subscriber here. you know your stuff !

[@santiagocamacho1077]

Precious Joey…

[@frankmorrow3701]

Dang, I gotta go see me some cloud forests sometime soon! Thanks for the vids Tony Roni! ;-)

[@1leggedgirl]

That solitaire bird sounds a lot like the varied thrushes we have up hear in the northwest, nice

[@jimcusack433]

There are still a few stretches like that upper forest, just above sea level in Ireland

[@bethlebee589]

That moment with the wall of ferns sent me to another place

[@chuxmix65]

Melastomacea are cool. We've go two Rhexias here in the NE US and they look nearly the same.

[@craighoover1495]

Thanks Joey.

[@evan-r-k]

Finger Nail Grinder, Scratch Salvia (grind razor sharp vinyl-wax fingers), Scratch Hairline. Thank you so much crimes pay but botany doesn't, this video truly helped inspire my shamanic-druidism-palandism keyboard-warrioring

[@Brandon-bo2wl]

Beautiful, some of my favorite botanical shit

[@KENTOSI]

18:35 - "(If) you don't love cloud forests you're an arsehole" - LOL your biggest Aussie fan couldn't agree more!!

[@matthewhurst6099]

Always a pleasure.

[@meta.aesthetica]

I fucking love your videos man, thank you ✌🏽

[@tonypalmer8556]

At the spot where you span the juniper and pine, looks like Chilcotin Plateau in British Columbia. Plants Rule.

[@weregoat529]

My favourite things on KZbin are CPBBD and ASMR - I can only imagine what the mashup would sound like... "Oooo yeah, you like when I give you tingles, you dirty bastard?"

[@evilsharkey8954]

Maybe if he walks along a particularly crunchy trail.

[@swayback7375]

I always wonder about the fungal life in these places you take us. You don’t show a lot of them and they’re so mysterious, I’m sure you’d show em if you found em. Like you said, this place must have loads of fungus, probably mostly unstudied, certainly understudied, but I’m sure it’s integral and fascinating!

[@dynastesgigas6996]

Timing is everything when searching for fungi, and if you really want to find obscure/rare species, it requires knowledge of hosts, life cycles, and how the spores are dispersed. Identifying fungi is also more difficult than identifying plants, because many, many species require taking spore prints or using microscopy to view spores. Overall, this means that getting "quick" IDs for fungi is often not possible (at least beyond family/genus level) in the field. There is also very little overlap between botany and mycology outside of mycorrhizal relationships. I have a good friend who is an undergrad but has already developed considerable skill when it comes to finding and identifying fungi, and this is just what I've noticed/talked about while hiking with him.

[@swayback7375]

@@dynastesgigas6996 yea, that’s pretty much all correct, but if it’s unstudied and unknown then you have nothing to go on, just luck of the draw. Hit the right area with the right trees, conditions, environment, season etc and it’s still a total crap shoot. All that fungi is basically always there, just a network under the surface, they pop up, do their job and vanish without a trace, sometimes in mere hours.

[@8ftbed]

For you... one day the show will never leave the room. The Redwing is removed and thuds to the floor. Sock is peeled away and voila! Go exploring the various fungal growths amongst his southernmost digits. 🤣

[@evilsharkey8954]

You see more mushrooms in the tropical areas and wet forests. They like moisture when they want to send up the fruiting bodies.

[@swayback7375]

@@evilsharkey8954 that’s kind of my point. You might SEE more of in certain areas, but you can’t see the body of the fungus, seeing a mushroom tells you that mushroom is certainly there, but if you don’t see a mushroom they are likely still there. Most of the woodland is a living network of roots and mycelia and we know soooo little about it. Fun to think about what might be there, the possibilities of may have been here in the past is mind blowing if you have an imagination.

[@SoNoFTheMoSt]

Those sub parallel lines are insane!

[@rylannational4577]

Oh a change of name, I grow Biancaea decapetala here in the uk , kinda nice!

[@WiLl_DuH_kId]

Look at that juicy bastard, is my new favorite quote

[@petercactus3460]

That tree poppy reminds me of Macleaya cordata (plume poppy)

[@RogueRunner85]

Jeez dude! Take it easy. Be careful.

[@FullModernAlchemist]

Man what I wouldn’t give to go exploring one of these places with you. I think it would be a great time.

[@Jackalyte]

The red in the Sphagnum is most likely sun protection for the delicate growing tips. If I remember my plant cell biology class correctly, the anthocyanin reacts with the radicals produced by UV and prevents further damage.

[@CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt]

Yes. Many plants produce anthocyanin pigments in their new growth fort this reason. Not much UV light penetrating through the canopy here though, it's quite shady.

[@initium5421]

I fucking love this greasy wop God dam, reminds me of home.

[@patblack2291]

16:57 In the cloud forest, you get more of that moss y mas, que no?! Or was it mossy moss?

[@snowstrobe]

Hup, we're back in DR... Tiny little cojones on the pine...

[@fitztastico]

Dang, now I have to find a way to incorporate "Get yer hummer up in dere" into my next tryst

[@KyleTheShaman]

💚

[@ivxxnative]

Oooweee

[@deerdy1315]

New Zealand has cool plants

[@jamesrategan955]

“Dere’s dat juicy latex” - likely da first time in history dose words have been put tagedder in dat order an da shit. Also, “begonias are fuckin’ weird.”

[@brainwashingdetergent4322]

Nail’n dat accent der.

[@randompanda876]

Why are the leaves white on the plant at 19:08?

[@johncbernaysjohnc.bernays1790]

@0:14 they look like little Cat's Faces!! LOL

[@ryanlove8242]

It looked like popcorn cassia (cassia didymobotrya). Is senna another name or was it something different?

[@dixietenbroeck8717]

I used to say *"sweat like a pig,"* too, but as I've *NEVER* seen a pig sweating changed to *"sweat like a horse." Horses sweat a LOT!*

[@charleschidsey6192]

Bill and Bob Swerski send their regards from Ditka’s. Bill’s fully recovered from his most recent heart attack. They’ve invited you to Chicago to watch da Bears play. They think you would fit right in with their fan club.

[@michaelcarley9866]

So all these plants got there from the mainland. Florida?

[@CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt]

Or from South America or Mexico

[@johncbernaysjohnc.bernays1790]

What was their Name prior to Latex becoming a trade mark?

[@ikeekieeki]

whoa that's moss?!

[@AxialTangent]

God I love moss

[@rociosilverroot2261]

I got an ad for TruGreen lawn care lol

[@CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt]

The best lawn care is destroying it altogether.

[@tangoechobravo806]

What kind of camera you using?

[@BigDijon]

im diggin that velvety shit

[@BigRoofBigSnow]

My first job was at Osco Drug!

[@raphlvlogs271]

6:47 looks like the junipers were planted there.

[@meta.aesthetica]

"Not bad for a non-vascular bastard" 🤣🤣

[@lonepheasant3489]

🤙

[@evilsharkey8954]

Looks like that parasitic plant was being parasitized by scale insects. Anyone else notice the cestrum at 19:40 has a couple of mutant six petaled blossoms?

[@nicolasflamel8969]

Like & Subscribe, you heathens.

[@MosQuito00]

Might we travel together?

[@BlueSkyScholar]

The good `ol days when you could buy everything you needed to cook meth with at Osco without a discount card.