Hello everyone and welcome to the Indefensive Plants podcast, the official podcast of Ineufensiveplants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone doing this week? In this episode, we're going to be talking about a species many of you will probably be familiar with, Thusia oxidantalus, or the white cedar, sometimes called the Arborvite. Now, this is a horticultural celebrity,

so to speak. It is widespread in cultivation, but in the wild, the story is a little bit different,

especially along the edge of its range. Joining us to talk about this is Sarah Johnson, a voice

you've probably heard on this podcast in the past. She is a conservation ecologist with a strong focus in botany and a very talented and passionate

person at that.

And she's going to talk to us about some really cool work that she's done on Thucca populations

along the edge of the range in the greater Chicago region.

I don't want to steal any of her thunder, so let's just jump right into it without further

ado.

Here's my conversation with Sarah Johnson.

I hope you enjoy.

All right, Sarah Johnson. welcome back to the podcast.

Now, for everyone listening, if you supported the show through Patreon, this is a voice you'd be hearing a lot more of.

But today, for those that don't support the Patreon yet or have not listened to previous episodes,

let's start with an introduction.

Tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is you do. Hi, my name is Sarah Johnson and I'm a plant ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, which is a research institute within

the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

That's awesome.

And so the latest episode that you were on,

we talked about some of the work you did for your master's research on McBridea Alba.

And today we're talking about some other interesting, fascinating realms that you have

sort of ventured into throughout the years and really

...